Leaning on their experienced problem solving techniques, a group of Lehighton Area High School students are primed for a return trip to the Odyssey of the Mind state competition on Saturday at Pocono Mountain East High School.

The seven-member structure team, five of them seniors, qualified for states for the second year in a row after recently placing third at a regional event in March.

“It feels great to qualify for states for the second straight year,” said Samantha Smalley. “It’s quite an accomplishment. I think for us, it would have been a letdown after last year if we didn’t get back.”

The students earned the trip to states on the back of their balsa wood structure, which they had to build to hold the most weight possible before a collapse. Success wasn’t achieved without trial and error.

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“I think the main thing is making sure you have everything perfectly plum and the same length,” said Victor McCandless. “I think we built about 10 structures, and in the end our final product held 455 pounds.”

Odyssey of the Mind challenges students to solve varying sets of problems using creativity, engineering and teamwork.

“I think we learned a lot about working as a team and time management,” Smalley said.

Competitions consist of both long-term and spontaneous problems.

Lehighton students developed an original skit in which characters were filming a documentary in Australia when they came upon a turtle on the shore. The turtle runs into trouble when it encounters a trash princess while trying to find its mom, but a scuba diver comes to the rescue, freeing the turtle.

“Our main objective to is to promote recycling and pollution prevention,” Grace Obert said. “The parts for our skit are all recycled.”

Adviser Beth Hudlow said many of the students have been involved with Odyssey of the Mind since fifth, sixth or seventh grade.

“I’m so proud of them,” she said during a team meeting Thursday. “They deserved to go to states so much and I just couldn’t ask for a nicer group.”

Lehighton will be up against 10 other teams in Saturday’s competition. Awaiting first- and second-place teams is a chance to go to the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals, which will be held in May at Iowa State University.

For a schedule of Saturday’s events and a webcast of the awards ceremony, visit https://paodyssey.com/state-finals.