Tournament of Minds success

Tournament of Minds Regional Final – Saturday 17 August

This year we had eight Tournament of Minds teams compete at the Regional Finals – four Primary teams and four Secondary teams, with seven students in each team. When the problem was released, the teams had six weeks to come up with ideas, characters and costumes, all while having a great time along the way.

The challenges involved creating a solution to a complex problem and presenting that solution in the form of a fully prepared 10-minute skit to a panel of judges at La Trobe in Bendigo. The performances are always entertaining and lots of fun! The teams also had to answer a separate spontaneous question that was posed on the day. 

This year’s spontaneous problem was:

We associate colours with certain things.  For example, we associate red with stop. 

You have come upon a grey sign with the words ‘Avoid the Playground’. Your tasks are:

1. Why is the sign grey?
2. Why does the sign say 'Avoid the Playground'?

Teams were allowed four minutes to discuss the problem and one minute to present their most creative responses.

We had a wonderful day at La Trobe University in Bendigo and were lucky enough to have a lot of family and friends there supporting us.

We would like to thank all the staff involved in TOM this year, including Mr Ruddick, Mr Leske, Dr Mazlunka, Mrs Milner and Mrs Bath. We would also like to thank the parent and senior student helpers, including Rachel Potter, Karthi Balraj, Chelsea White, Greta Burns and Anna De Vrieze. Without them, it would not have been possible to organise all the teams and rehearsals. The students are grateful for their support.

The five teams will now begin the difficult task of preparing for the Tournament of Minds State Finals in Melbourne on Sunday 8 September. We wish them all good luck.

Chelsea White (11 Riley)

TOM Captain 2024