Northampton Area School District schools on March 14 competed in the Odyssey of the Mind competition.

Six teams competed from the district, including two from Siegfried Elementary School, one from Moore Elementary School, one from Lehigh Elementary School, one from Northampton Area Middle School and one from Northampton Area High School.

NAMS placed second out of 12 teams and will move on to the state finals April 11 in Berwick.

The schools competed against 650 local students March 12 to put their creativity to the test at the Northeast Pennsylvania Odyssey of the Mind regional tournament.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international creative problem-solving program. Teams of up to seven students receive a long-term problem at the beginning of the school year that they must solve in an eight-minute performance within a small budget.

"It's a fantastic program that pushes children to think outside the box while exercising skills across every academic and artistic discipline," said Ryan Balton, tournament official and regional public relations director. "The acting, writing, engineering, scenery, costumes, all aspects of the solution, are completely original creations of the students. It's exciting to see what they come up with."

This year's long-term problems ranged from recreating a silent movie with a humorous villain to creating a team-engineered propulsion system to power a train that overcomes obstacles.

Teams also received a secret spontaneous problem the day of competition, which they must solve on the spot.

The northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) regional tournament was held at Pocono Mountain West High School in Pocono Summit for the seventh year in a row.

State finalists will compete to advance to World Finals at Michigan State University in May.

Seven teams from NEPA advanced to World Finals last year.

"Our area has some of the best OMers in the world every year," Balton said. "The competition is more impressive than ever."

The NEPA region includes Bradford, Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Northampton, Pike, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties.