Students from across northeast Pennsylvania are putting their heads together for the 2023 NEPA Odyssey of the Mind regional tournament. Nearly 350 students from 25 schools will go head to head at Pocono Mountain West High School Feb. 25.

Northampton Area School District students are competing in the tournament, alongside Pocono Mountain, Bangor, Abington Heights, Athens and Delaware Valley area school districts.

The tournament is open to the public and free to attend.

Odyssey of the Mind teams spend the school year designing a solution to their “problems” to present at competitions held around the world each spring. All elements of each team’s solution must be original creations of the students. Their creations must accomplish goals within specific guidelines and a strict budget.

Students are tasked this year with building ride-on pirate ships, designing Rube Goldberg devices, testing the strength of balsa wood structures with barbell weights and telling dramatic stories about dinosaurs and ancient Greek mythology. Teams also receive a secret spontaneous problem the day of competition, which they must solve on the spot.

“It’s an incredible program that pushes children to think outside the box, while nurturing real-world skills across every academic and artistic discipline,” said Ryan Balton, who volunteers as the program’s public relations director. “We add an ‘A’ to make STEM into STEAM - incorporating the Art into the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics skill-building activities.”

Top performers at the regional tournament will advance to Pennsylvania state finals at Lock Haven University April 1. Those state finalists will compete for the chance to represent northeast Pennsylvania at the Odyssey of the Mind world finals at Michigan State University in May.

The NEPA region saw seven local teams advance to the world finals last year, where they competed against thousands of students from dozens of different states and countries.

“Our area has some of the best Odyssey of the Mind competitors in the world every year,” said Balton, who participated as a student throughout the early 2000s. “Our students’ display of creativity and teamwork is more impressive than ever.”

The NEPA region includes Northampton, Carbon, Bradford, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties.