Joan Maki has been an OM Problem Captain for longer than she cares to remember — a figure that falls somewhere between the 15- and 20-year mark.

This year Maki presides over Stunt Mobiles, a technical problem in which teams must build two mobile vehicles that can maneuver through five obstacle courses. It is Maki’s job to know the competition rules, and the problem, inside and out. The basics are that each Stunt Mobile — built according to size, power and time restrictions — may only run on three of the five courses. It gets way more techno-nitpicky from there.

“This is one of the most difficult problems I’ve ever seen,” Maki said.

Clarifications of problem rules have been rolling in on a daily basis. Normally, a problem might experience a page worth of updates and modifications. This time, however, the emails have been coming in 10 or 20 at a time and nearly five pages of clarifications have been passed down from OM officials.

“I’ve had questions like you would not believe on the power systems for these things,” Maki said.

Maki’s introduction to OM came about in her search for new activities to incorporate into her classroom. As a teacher on at a school on the Qualla Boundary, Maki wanted something that would get her kids involved, something more interactive than another lecture or chapter from the book.

She discovered OM and began using some of the competition’s basic concepts such as Spontaneous. A short-term, problem-solving scenario in which team members use quick thinking and creativity to solve mini-puzzles, Spontaneous is held separately from main stage, long-term problems, but factors in to a teams’ final scoring. Topics vary widely from finding different uses for material objects to word games to building something out of items provided.

Maki moved on to teach in Highlands, where a combination classroom of academically gifted and exceptional children prompted her to again use OM concepts to integrate her students. One day as a group of AG kids, who had come up with a terrific idea for a robot, struggled to put it together, one of Maki’s EC kids, with the hands-on knowledge and computer know-how, walked over and, “all you gotta do is ...” He was right.

“All these little light bulbs went off in my head,” Maki said.

Maki developed her own small competitions within the school and students joined in for an inclusive and academically challenging good time. As a plus, the competitions helped break down some of the barriers between students who are traditionally cordoned off from one another.

Now a teacher at Macon Middle School, Maki spends most of her time working with Title IX students — those who have the hardest time adjusting to routine classrooms, perhaps due to behaviorial or emotional problems. After so many years spent on the administrative end of OM, Maki says its time to get back on the ground level.

“I’m going to run a team next year,” Maki said.

The team will include kids from the Title IX program, with practices beginning at the end of the school year, in the down time following end of grade testing. Maki hopes other kids see and hear about the practices and will want to get involved.

“It’s meant to be cooperative problem solving for all students,” Maki said.