On March 2nd, the 2025 Shanghai China Odyssey of the Mind Innovation Competition and the 46th World Odyssey of the Mind Selection Campaign came to a successful conclusion. The event was jointly sponsored by Shanghai China Odyssey of the Mind Association, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Center, Shanghai Education Press and Shanghai Fengxian Education Bureau, and attracted more than 600 teams from 11 provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Shandong, as well as 7 Korean teams to compete on the same stage. Eight teams in our school have made great achievements with their great performances, innovative thinking, elaborate props and excellent improvisation ability, and won six first prizes in different groups of secondary and higher vocational schools, one creativity prize and one second prize.
There are six long-term questions in this year's Odyssey of the Mind Innovation Competition, and our school has registered four of them, namely "Wonderful Competition", "Food in Books", "Animal Rescue" and "Astronomical Odyssey". These questions are extremely open, which not only requires the students to explore unknown areas and bring into play innovative thinking, but also requires them to harness team spirit and pursue unique ideas and solutions in the process of solving problems.
After receiving the notice of the competition at the end of October last year, our school immediately started intensive preparations for the competition. School leaders and heads of relevant departments attached great importance to the competition, and visited the training site several times to guide the progress of each team's preparation for various aspects of the competition, including conception, creativity and props production. The instructors of each team spent their spare time, winter vacation and evening training time to give students preparation guidance and care. Our school set up an expert group composed of many Chinese teachers and art teachers to optimize the script and put forward valuable opinions and suggestions for students' performances. Everybody supported each other, strived for perfection in every detail, and showed innovative thinking and artistic agility at the same time. Through numerous improvement, the works gradually took shape, which are not only rich in content and diverse in forms, but also reflect the characteristics of the team in details. In the process of preparing for the long-term and impromptu competitions, the students overcame many difficulties in props making, stage expression, language skills and practical operation skills. They united as one, practised diligently, dared to challenge, and constantly accumulated confidence in the competition. Through selection, repeated rehearsals, and countless days and nights of persistent training, these teams jointly created this great achievement, which fully demonstrated the spirit of unity and innovation of teachers and students in our school.
The theme of this competition is "Building a Strong Nation in Education, with Unlimited Innovation in AI Era". The first special session for students in higher/vocational colleges attracted local and some foreign vocational colleges to compete on the same stage, demonstrated the important practice of deepening the reform of vocational education and stimulating the vitality of innovation, and provided new ideas for the high-quality development of vocational education. The competition provided a platform for students to show and challenge themselves, further stimulated their creativity and internal potential, and promoted the cultivation of innovative talents. Our school will take this competition as an opportunity to continue to deepen the reform of education and teaching and contribute to cultivating more high-quality talents with innovative spirit and practical ability.