The Radford University team began its college Odyssey of the Mind journey in 2014, making the trip to Iowa State University. Many of the team members were part of a high school team - Liberty High School in Bedford, Virginia. We loved being part of OOTM in high school and decided to keep the gang together in high school. We added some new team members (new to the team and new to Odyssey) along the way. The RU team again traveled to World Finals in 2015. This time it was Michigan State University. After this competition, the team decided they wanted to find a way to give back to the communities that had supported us throughout our Odyssey years. Odyssey Angels, a program started by Odyssey of the Mind during the 2011-12 season, sounded like just the thing. |
But what could we offer? How could we give back?
After a lot of talking and brainstorming, we decided to go with something that really highlighted what we've learned and done in Odyssey of the Mind all these years. We decided to create costumes for children in wheelchairs.....costumes for Halloween....costumes made out of boxes! So we developed some materials describing our plans, sent them out, and the requests from families came rolling in! And the building began!
Odyssey AngelsWe sent our project description to Odyssey Angels. They were very helpful and supportive throughout the season. Then, we were notified that we had won! The team was thrilled! Having our efforts recognized was awesome; getting most of our trip to World Finals covered financially was also great!
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Winning Odyssey AngelsWe were competing at Virginia's state OOTM tournament and were thrilled to be recognized publicly by Sammy Miklus who had traveled to the tournament.
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Our videoHere's our video. We had a great time creating it. The outtakes were hilarious! But when it was shown in front of everyone at World Finals, we were overwhelmed! Special thanks to Evan VanDerwerker, a former OOTM-er himself, for helping us with creating this little gem!
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While we were at World Finals, we realized that there were lots more people out there who could participate in creating Awesome Box Costumes! Many more children could have the coolest costume on their street. So we decided to create this website in order to share the "how-to's" and offer encouragement. And we want to see your creations so send them our way!