Manhattan Middle School Odyssey of the Mind Team

The Manhattan Middle School Odyssey of the Mind team has qualified for the Odyssey World Finals in Ames, Iowa, May 27-30 2009. Students from over 24 different countries will participate in the tournament which emphasizes creativity, teamwork, engineering and dramatic skills. The Manhattan team designed and built a robotic panda bear for the Odyssey problem Teach Yer Creature, and placed second in the state tournament. Coach Beverly Vellandi stated, "The kids were very ambitous this year, designing a completely motorized robotic Panda which turns its head, eats bamboo, moves it arms, takes pictures, counts on its fingers, and throws doughnuts." They created a play where the panda visits a "human zoo" and learns arithmetic at the nerd cage and feeds dougnuts to models at the model cage. In the photo are team members (from the left) Will Sheerin, Kerrick Luff, Nick Kostovny, Peter Vellandi, Perry the Panda, Bibi Vellandi, Hattie DeFries, and Quin Raderstorf. Team members attend Manhattan, Summit, and Southern Hills Middle Schools.