Plato Academy Schools entered thirteen teams across multiple problems and divisions in this year’s Buccaneer Bay Regional competition, and the results were remarkable. Students won across several problem categories, and seven of those thirteen teams earned advancement to the State Competition, scheduled for April 4, 2026, in Orlando.
For those unfamiliar with the program, Odyssey of the Mind is a rigorous creative problem-solving competition where student teams tackle a predefined long-term challenge over the course of many months. Each solution requires writing, design, structural construction, and theatrical performance, all woven together into a single cohesive presentation. What makes the program particularly demanding, and particularly meaningful, is this: no adult may contribute ideas or solutions. The work belongs entirely to the students.
That condition is the backbone of the program. It is also where Plato Academy’s philosophy becomes most visible.
The school network takes its name from the ancient Greek philosopher whose ideas about education remain strikingly relevant. Among the most enduring of those ideas is the concept of arete, a Greek term often translated as excellence or virtue, but which Plato understood as something more precise: a skill cultivated through practice, effort, and serious engagement.
Over months of preparation, students built their solutions from scratch. They wrote scripts, engineered structures, constructed costumes and props, rehearsed performances, and refined every detail through their own collective effort. When the competition weekend arrived, they stepped forward as the authors of their own work, and the results followed.
The breadth of success across multiple problems and age divisions reflects the depth of preparation schoolwide. Seven teams now carry Plato Academy’s name into the state competition, where they will face the strongest teams from across Florida.
Beyond the placements and the advancing teams, school leaders were quick to point to something less quantifiable. Students had fun. They collaborated, argued over design choices, solved problems no one had anticipated, and came out the other side with more confidence than they walked in with. That kind of experience is difficult to manufacture and impossible to shortcut.
The State Competition in Orlando on April 4 will bring together regional winners from across Florida. For Plato Academy’s advancing teams, it represents the next stage of a process that has already produced considerable growth.
