MindRiot Takes Brainstorming To A New Level

“Three days. 100 high school students. Cash prizes.” This is the enigmatic slogan of MindRiot, a three-day competition held during the second week of June at The Leonardo museum. The competition changes every year, however the concept has remained the same: get a group of the most unique, most capable teens in Utah and give them a real-world problem to solve. The groups that comes up with the most innovative and feasible solution are awarded with up to $5,000 in cash prizes.

Highland sophomore Sarah Kendrick was a participant this past year, and she absolutely loved it.

“It was so innovative and challenging that by the end of each day I was mentally exhausted,” Kenrick said. “It gave me an experience that I don’t really get at school.”

MindRiot kicked off with a day of workshops led by some of Utah’s best business people, engineers, and scientists. The day also included a guided meditation and some get-to-know-you activities, not to mention fully catered meals. At the end of the day, the problem that the participants were going to attack was revealed: education.

The second day began with group formation, followed by brainstorming sessions within the group. The groups tended to have between 3 and 6 participants, and each group was assigned a mentor to help guide them and pick out any flaws in their ideas. By the end of day 2, groups had designed business models to tackle education issues both nationally and internationally.

Kenrick’s group designed a social media site to open up communication between teachers and students by allowing them to easily collaborate through digital resources such as Skype, live-chat, etc.

After the idea was fully formed, groups began creating presentations and website prototypes to promote their solution. Following this, each group had about 5 minutes to present their ideas to a panel of judges who work in the field of education, and after several hours of deliberation, the judges awarded cash prizes to the groups who had ideas that were exceptionally creative and relatively easy to implement. Two groups were awarded $1,000, and the dollar amount went down from there.

Although Kenrick’s group was not awarded any money, she still had the experience of a lifetime and loved getting involved with some of the most intelligent, motivated teens from around the state to talk about education.

“It was really awesome for all sorts of talented and innovative students to get a say in how we’re educated,” Kenrick said. “A lot of the time students don’t get to input their own ideas and opinions and a project like MindRiot was a really awesome way to get involved.”

MindRiot was started a few years ago and has since grown in popularity, however many are still unaware that it exists. It is a great opportunity to make connections with other teens and adults in Utah, get a feel for a business/engineering/problem-solving atmosphere, and looks great on college applications. Applications for MindRiot open in March at http://www.theleonardo.org/none/mind-riot-2015/.