Palmetto High School junior Daniel Fein is going back to the World Odyssey of the Mind Competition.
“I’ve competed in Odyssey for 10 years. The best we’ve done is second place in the world,” he says. “Now we are going back to the world competition.”
He and his team won the state competition the weekend of April 6. Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem-solving competition. For this year’s competition, the team put together a performance that involved engineering among other things.
“We had to build a car that performs certain tasks,” Fein says. “It had to drive in a circle and part of it needed to extend. We used a pneumatic system to accomplish that. It needed to move two objects at once which we used magnets to do.”
For the World competition, they have been given the same problem to solve. Now the team wants to make the performance smoother.
They also have to answer creative questions under timed conditions as part of the competition.
Fein was in ninth grade when the team placed second in the world. At that time, his brother and other seniors were on the team. This time, with those teammates off at college, he’s with a different team, one he put together.
At Palmetto, Fein is a member of the Social Science Honor Society, vice president of the Science Honor Society, and vice president of Mu Alpha Theta. He competes in Mu Alpha Theta competitions.
He also participates in numerous science competitions for school, including the Science Bowl. He’s been on the Science Bowl Team for three years.
He also participated on one of the Envirothon teams. His team placed first regionally but could not go on to states because of scheduling conflicts.
Last year, he and his team scored first in the chemistry competition at Barry University. This year he competed in physics and won seventh place individually.
Fein also competes in the History Bowl.
Recently he and some friends qualified for the National Semi-finals in National Economics Challenge.
Several students wanted to take part in the competition for the first time so they found a teacher to sponsor the group.
“We self-studied economics and took the test,” he says.
That competition is online and taken at school.
The summer after sophomore year Fein attended a program at Harvard Medical Center where he conducted cancer research. He looked at the optimal concentrations of drugs to kill multiple myeloma cells.
At the same time, he worked on a research project with Merck Pharmaceutical. That opportunity came about because he won the Emperor Science Award essay competition.
This summer he’s attending the Research Science Institute at MIT.
So far, he hasn’t settled on a favorite college or major. He is interested in both science and economics, and may pursue a career in either medicine or business.
This will be Fein’s third year going to Guatemala on a medical mission. In the past, he’s gone to distribute glasses to children. In preparation for the trips, Daniel and friends have contacted companies that donate glasses for medical missions and received glasses to give to the kids.
“This year I plan on showing science experiments to try and interest them in science,” he says.
The mission trips make him appreciate what he has.
“It’s crazy to see people with so few resources and ability to advance socially,” he says. “We come for one week with medical supplies and that’s their medical treatment for one year. It makes me grateful for my life.”
Linda Bernfeld Rodriguez
