Introduction
Your Stories
OMers
Abound
Weather from
Iowa
OM Words
Changing a
Lightbulb
A
Serious Performance
Copying Art
Once Upon a
Mattress
The Ballad
of Oz
Your Stories
Here are the some of the stories I received from my call
for writers
- Stain Killer
- My Ft. Campbell, KY High School Classics team was
working hard before regionals; two of the girls
were painting away on the backdrop when somebody
knocked over the bottle of green acrylic paint
onto the blue carpet of the school.
Fearing the wrath of the principal, the two girls go out searching for carpet cleaner. They lay hold of an aerosol can which has in big letters, "Stain Killer", so they start spraying the carpet with the contents of the can. I walk into the room, ignorant of the whole episode, see these girls spraying the carpet with this can. "What are you doing?!" I yelled. They told me the story of the green paint and they were trying to get up the spot with this "Stain Killer."
I then told them to read the fine print on the can. It's a stain killer for rust... it's primer paint. They had used almost half the can on the carpet. I was very surprised when they took first at regionals later that week. The principal is still unhappy, though.
- A Tale of Two Teams
- In 1990 my 2nd daughter, Erynn, then in the 3rd
grade, became involved in OM and pulled me in as
the coach. The problem that was given to them was
the balsa wood structure problem. I had had 1 1/2
years college level training in civil engineering
before I found my true career, computers, so I
felt qualified to coach the problem. The first
thing I had to learn, however, was what is
Outside Assistance. Since I couldn't tell the
kids how to design the structure, I would find
material for them to study. Great Idea, except
there isn't anything out there below the college
level which tells how to design structures. I dug
out my old books from years gone by and taught
the kids about Euler's Formula and a version of
the slenderness ratio which I translated to their
level and called Critical Length.
We started in a complete vacuum in that we had never seen an OM tournament before, and more importantly, what other teams' structures of years past had looked like. The kids came up with a design which turned out to be much different than all the rest. We also learned about wood density and jigs and many other construction techniques. Throughout all this my first daughter Aimee, who was a freshman in high school, helped coach the team.
The team was a real screamer. They placed 3rd at the regional tournament. At state they placed 3rd in weight held, but by way of a super strong spontaneous, they came 5 point from going to World. It was a great year for all.
Aimee became interested in the process, so I promised her that if she got a team together, I would coach it. Six of the first team came back in '91 to do it again, so I found myself with 2 structure teams. I asked the State Problem Captain if the 2 daughters could talk about their solutions and got back an emphatic "NO!" I was told that if any ideas transferred between the teams, it would be outside assistance. My wife, Su, agreed to be the assistant coach even though she had a team of her own. We held one team meeting on Saturday and one on Sunday. The girls were almost religious about not talking OM, except for spontaneous.
To give a little back ground on these 2 daughters, I will have to tell you that they are like twins 7 years apart. They look alike, talk alike and more importantly to this issue, they think alike. They both became the team lead. Aimee had seen the structure from the younger daughter's team in '90, so they had the same beginning. It was uncanny to watch the teams develop their ideas. A few weeks into the season I could predict what the younger team was going to do by what the older one had done the week before. We became very conscious of how we might influence the teams' thought process and worked hard to avoid it. At one point, though, to avoid what we saw as a problem, we considered leading one team or the other away from that design, but decided that that really would have been OA.
Half way through the season when we saw the parallelism developing I began cautioning the teams to "Remember where you got your ideas and how you built the structure." This is also when I began writing a paper on OM structure design and I taught the teams the same material. They were exposed to the same information, the same beginning and they developed almost the same solution. As we neared the tournament the 2 structures were so identical that at 30' you couldn't tell them apart, and they were much different from the traditional design.
Three weeks before the regional tournament it was obvious that the teams would have to go to 2 days a week, meaning that I was going to have to coach them together. Their designs were completely developed and they were working on construction techniques. I asked them both "Are you happy with your design?" Both teams said that they were. I told them that they had to finalize it because the next week they were going to see the other team's structure, and they could not use anything they saw in their solution. It was a mute point because there were only minor differences. When they saw the other team's work they were as flabbergasted as we had been.
On the day of the tournament, the younger team went first. Their structure caught a lot of attention because it was so different from others the judges had seen. They queried the team members thoroughly about its design and construction. Two hours later the high school team came in for inspection. The first thing the head judge said was "This looks a lot like another structure we saw earlier."
"Yes," my daughter said. "My sister's team was here earlier and our structures are a lot alike."
"And who is your coach?"
"My dad coached both teams." They had instructions to be as honest and open as they knew how.
I was waiting for the younger team to come out of spontaneous when the State Problem Captain came down the hall. She is a large and imposing woman and struck fear into even my heart. I have come to know her quite well since and appreciate the great service she has given, but that year she was not the person I wanted to see. "We need to talk to you in the inspection room when you are available." she told me.
"I'll be there in 15 minutes, if you can wait for me."
"We'll see you then in 15 minutes in the inspection room."
When the team came out I took them to the school cafeteria and found a couple of parents to keep them there. Su and I headed for the meeting.
"You'll have to see this from our viewpoint and other coach's viewpoints." she began. In the back of my mind I saw a huge OA penalty for each team. Su and I talked for 20 minutes explaining why the 2 structures were so much alike, but I didn't feel that we had convinced them.
"Why don't you talk to the kids?" I suggested.
"We'd like to do that." she replied. I went to the cafeteria to get the team and ran into Aimee on the way.
"Get your team together and stay in the cafeteria. You're going to have to talk to the judges." She ran off to find the others.
I brought in the team and introduced them to the judges and sat back to listen. The judges were great. They were understanding and listened as the kids spoke. One of the most thrilling moments of my OM life was when one 4th grade boy, who was normally quite shy, spoke up and explained Euler's Formula to the judge and how they had used it to design the structure. He had his own twist to it, and if we had gone no farther than that moment, it would have all been worth it.
Aimee had 6 of the other team waiting when we finished and they went in to meet with the judging staff. Su and I couldn't stay to listen because her team of 2nd graders was going on stage for their long term performance. I returned at 4:00 PM to get the results.
"No penalty. They are certainly well coached, but I recommend that you don't coach 2 teams in the same problem anymore." was the response from the Regional Problem Captain. I wondered for the rest of that year and into the next exactly what he meant by that.
The next year Aimee decided to be a judge. At that time they had a lower age limit than they do now and she was quite welcome because of here first hand experience. She came home from one of the training sessions with an interesting finish to the story. One of the other judges was explaining OA to her and told her that "Last year we really grilled 2 teams for outside assistance."
"I know." she replied. "I was on one of those teams."
"Who's your father?" he asked. She told him. "At the start of that day he was a dark, dark, figure. How could someone do something like that to 2 teams? By the time we got done talking to your team he was a saint. I would like to shake his hand."
That was my introduction into coach's training. I have since finished the paper on structure design for OMers and it has been used in Colorado OM training since. Aimee took a real interest in talking with the team members as they came through inspection and asked them where they learned how to build a structure. The interesting thing about that paper is that every team that has beaten one of mine has used that paper for their technical information.
I have stayed away from judging and limited my activities in training because coaching is what I want to do the most. One of the girls on the younger team gave me one of my most memorable moments about half way through that season. Marie was a real bright girl, and very attractive. She had learned that if she shrugged cutely and said "I don't know." when asked a question, she didn't have to participate. But she was always paying attention from the back of the group.
One day the team and I were working in the basement. Two boys were building one of their jigs and were slaughtering a 1x2 and the miter box it was mounted in. Time was short and I was really frustrated. Marie was watching. "Marie, you haven't done this yet." I took the saw from the boys and gave it to her. "Here, you try it."
"I don't know how to do that." she said with her typical shrug.
"It's time to learn." I said as I nudged her toward the bench with the board clamped in the miter box. She took the saw and whacked the board off like a professional. She had been paying attention and had absorbed all the instruction I had been pouring out on the boys. "That's great! You've been hiding that talent from us all this time!"
Just then Su called from the top of the stairs saying that Marie's mother was there to pick her up. As she went up the stairs she beamed with excitement. "Mrs. Whitchurch, I have talent even I didn't know I had!" That was our key to her for the rest of the season and she became one of the most active participants on the team.
OM is about empowerment. Teaching kids what they can do has been real thrilling. Including the teams my wife and I have coached together, we are on our 16th team this year. I have a real bone which I pick from time to time with one of our regional directors when he assesses an OA penalty just because he doesn't believe the kids are capable of certain things. I'm glad that my team this year is not in his region because, if things work well, they are going to raise eyebrows. I coach "hard" and expect a lot out of my teams. I ALWAYS work to build their self confidence by using positive comments like "You're a bright kid and I think you can do better than that." Last year I witnessed an unbelievable transformation in our 'team clown' when I told him "You're smarter than you think you are."
I have learned a lot about my own relationship with my son. We have had problems working together in Boy Scouts and these same problems became intensified in OM. It is what we have called for years "The Coach's Kid Syndrome." That's when the coach looks around and sees that the worst behaving team member is his(hers). My son and I are just now getting to the point where we can work together without "pushing each other's buttons." I demand the same respect he would give to a teacher and give him the same treatment I give to other team members. He started in the middle of last summer on a solution to the Baloonacy problem based upon the preliminary description. It has been real rocky working with him because of the CKS, but we have finally worked through it. It will carry back to Boy Scouts and everything else that he and I do together.
In closing I want to say that I feel that the Outside Assistance rule and its strict, far reaching interpretation is the reason OM is so successful. Making the kids learn and do the work and keeping it from becoming a competition between parents returns tremendous rewards. If the coach(s) can connect with what the kids already know and build from there, there is no real limit to what they can do. It always thrills me to have a kid come back for a second year and see how much different (s)he is from the year before. Even if they don't succeed, they will learn something from trying.
