Jennifer Veale, a spokeswoman for OotM, said in an email there will be more than 15,000 participants, coaches, parents, supporters, special guests and volunteers from across the U.S. and around the world attending the finals.

According to OotM, there are 825 teams with seven participants each. These teams are made up of participants from 33 different states within the U.S. in addition to 13 different countries.

Veale said many teams have been progressing toward the world competition since last fall.

“They’ve been working on refining their solutions since September, often in their spare time or as an after-school activity,” Veale said.

Teams have competed in a series of rigorous state and national competitions prior to the world finals. The problems are judged on creativity and risk-taking during the challenges.

Laurin Gierman, the manager of destination state conference management for Residence Education and Housing Services, said this year will mark the third year MSU has hosted the Odyssey of the competition finals — MSU was the host in 2007 and 2010.

“Our campus is one of the few that can hold this group,” Gierman said. “We have ample housing and dining space, (and) classroom and competition space for the group.”

Gierman said roughly 7,000 students, coaches and parents will be staying on campus at either Brody Complex Neighborhood, South Neighborhood, East Neighborhood or Shaw Hall. Those not staying on campus will be in local hotels.

Gierman said competitions will be held in Brody Complex Neighborhood, Kellogg Center, Breslin Center, IM Sports-West, Wilson Hall, Wonders Hall, Natural Resources Building, Wharton Center and McDonel Hall.

“Competitions are all open to the public,” Gierman said. “MSU students are encouraged to watch students and their creativity. It’s phenomenal.”

The Dairy Store also will be releasing a new flavor called Odyssey’s Brain Freeze on May 21 on request from OotM, according to John Engstrom, MSU dairy plant manager. The flavor will feature vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered caramel pretzel balls and a sea salt caramel swirl.
Engstrom said the flavor will replace Omer Tracks, the flavor introduced during the 2010 OotM World Finals.

The opening ceremony for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Breslin Center.

There also is a Creativity Festival on Thursday from noon to 5 p.m. at Jenison
Field House.