Rocky Mount, N.C.— While most North Carolina Wesleyan College students are away from campus enjoying Spring Break, the college will be alive with activity when Wesleyan hosts the North Carolina Regional Odyssey of the Mind competition.

On Saturday, March 14, about 1,400 elementary and secondary students, parents, grandparents, officials, and talent judges will gather across campus, from the Dunn Center to Everett Gymnasium, the Taylor Center, the Hartness Student Center, and the Hardee’s Building—and also across the street at the Rocky Mount Preparatory School. Excited teams of students will show off their creative solutions to problems they’ve worked on for months.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that encourages students from kindergarten through college age to use their imaginations to meet a wide range of challenges and devise solutions to problems.

And the problems aren’t easy. Consider, for example, the challenge to design and build a small vehicle that will change its appearance when it visits each of four locations, and after it leaves one of the locations it must appear to be a group of vehicles. Another problem involves creating a performance about a candy maker and candy factory where the main ingredient in five kinds of candy must be something healthy to eat.

Each team of students hopes to advance beyond the regional level to compete in state and even world competition, which involves about 25 nations.

North Carolina was among the first states to participate and compete in the world finals of the competition, which began in 1978 as Olympics of the Mind. This year marks the second time since 2000 that Wesleyan has hosted the Odyssey of the Mind regional competition.