Odyssey of Mind 2014 World Finals - Don't leave home without your Duct Tape

As I prepare to leave for the 2014 OM World Finals tomorrow, held this year in Ames, Iowa I got a brainstorm to start a blog about my Duct Tape collection that began in 2004 as an OM coach at Darlington High School.

It all started out pretty simple. In 2004 the World Finals were being held at the U of Maryland in Maryland state. I thought it would be cool to buy a roll of duct tape in every state we drove through on the trip. To make it special (OM communications and learning experience) I would also have the store clerk sign the roll (name, date, city and state) on the inside with a Sharp!

Then I thought "what if" we got rolls from all the different OM teams at World Finals? Could we make connections and get rolls from all fifty states? (Fast forward - That took some doing but on 5-22-2006 I got the last state, Mississippi! It was signed by Ken Barlow of Florence, MS 39073 a friend of my daughters friend, now husband, Kurt Lindsley!) That's the map and all the rolls on the left. I kept a logbook for each roll and the story for each roll. Pretty interesting stuff and I will share more on it in later posts to come.

Then I thought "what if" I got a roll from each of the world countries?   So the quest was on. To date I have rolls from 55 world countries each roll signed by a citizen or documentation that the roll actually came from that country. This work has slowed a bit but still continues and I hope this blog and my trip to work as an official at this years OM World Finals jump starts the collecting.

Our high school OM teams were pretty successful and I was lucky enough to coach teams that went to World Finals 6 times before I retired in 2010.  Now NASA is a big supporter of OM and that got me thinking..."what if" I got a roll from the space shuttle or International Space Station? How cool would that be! Well have I have the tape and a story to tell...

Later I'll be posting a list of the countries I have and if any readers are interested in helping get rolls from the remaining world countries I would be happy to hear from you. I'm thinking maybe David Letterman might be interested in having the collection on his show before he retires. I'll let you know how the collecting went when I get back after World Finals is over.