07-04-2025
Pablo Center's 'Odyssey of the Mind' team prepares for upcoming world competition
EAU CLAIRE — Students at the Pablo Center at the Confluence are celebrating a great achievement for their Odyssey of the Mind team, as a recent win for the team qualifies them for the world competition in May.
This accomplishment is coupled with the team also celebrating their first year participating through the Pablo Center.
As a creative international problem-solving program created for students ranging from kindergarten to the college level, teams work together to solve problems to present and work around spontaneous challenges. Grades are divided up by age ranges and divisions, with the fourth, fifth and sixth grade girls in the Pablo Center's team competing in Division Two.
Tammy Schmitz, the team's coach, said problems which teams can select are typically announced around October. For this year's competition, their team competed in the 'classics' category, where they had to create an original chef character inspired by literary characters and events, design a gourmet meal based on classic literature, design a team-built cooking gadget and stage a performance.
'Right now, we are doing a play,' said Moxie B., a member of the team.
'We make our own play based on a piece of literature, and we have to do all of the sets, the costumes and the scripts — literally everything,' said Clara B., a fellow member of the team.
Anya L., another member, said along with them coordinating everything, they also cannot have any adults helping during the competition which helps the students to solve solutions on their own.
Odyssey of the Mind started back in 1979. While local institutions and organizations have participated in prior years, Schultz wanted to bring back the opportunity for kids to participate.
'The unique thing about the Pablo team is most of the time it is done through a school,' she said. 'With this, we have kids from four different schools and some homeschool kids as well. It has been a really neat thing to watch them come together, learn about each other and learn how to work as a team.
'The school districts have been doing it for a long time, but with COVID a lot of them pulled back from some of that stuff. I have been involved for 23 years and I just couldn't let it go. I approached the Pablo and asked if they would be willing to sponsor a team.'
After winning first place at their regional competition in Bangor, Wis., the members of their team are eligible to compete at the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals in Michigan, taking place from May 21 to the 24.
'It was a very exciting thing to happen, but it was definitely not expected,' said Schmitz. 'So, we are moving forward.'
With four of their seven members planning to attend, the team is now trying to fundraise approximately $8,000 to get the students there.
Community members are able to donate through the Pablo Center's donation page at Additionally, plans to host events for fundraising the group are also in the works, with the discussion of a garage sale on April 12 as one of these future events.
Team members are now preparing themselves to compete ahead of the competition, with Clara B. saying, 'We need to make some changes to the scripts. I don't think we need to do too much with the setting, but we do need to fix the table — that broke.'
As the team's success is bringing them to the world competition where they will have the opportunity to participate alongside 25,000 other students, many of the parents, coaches and students themselves are excited about the results.
'I feel really proud of my team and I,' said Penelope S., a member of the team.
'I am so proud of them,' said Schmitz. 'I am just amazed with the young child's mind, and how they can get from completely not focused on anything to be able to get this, and just what they can accomplish when given the opportunity.
'There were many things that didn't work out the way they thought they were going to at first, and to watch those light bulbs go on when they were able to solve it and be able to figure out 'We can do this' and 'We can do that,' it is the neatest thing in the world.'
