Ellie Kitchen (12) made it to the world championships two times before making it again this year. Although she was looking forward to the competition itself, there was one Odyssey tradition that Kitchen was excited to partake in: pin trading.

Something that’s always been a constant at Odyssey of the Mind competitions was pin trading. People had pins unique to their regions and were able to trade with each other at every competition.

And as Kitchen walked around, holding the cloth that had her billboard shaped SoCal pins attached to it, she went around seeking to gather pins from all across the globe.

She went up to people.

She talked to people.

She had fun.

And while this might not have seemed revolutionary for someone else, to Kitchen, it wasn’t something she’d always been accustomed to.

Back in 2021, the first time she’d ever been to Worlds, Kitchen felt intimidated. There were so many people, so many teams, so many silly costumes. Since it was her first time there, she didn’t know how to get around. Kitchen had considered herself to be an extrovert and if she wanted to trade pins with people, she’d have to talk with them– and so she did.

Whether she could feel it at the moment or not, Kitchen started breaking out of her shell and started to get more comfortable with talking to the strangers around her.

Pin by pin, conversation by conversation, she was no longer afraid to talk to people back then and she certainly wasn’t the following years.

That’s something that Kitchens felt Odyssey has helped her grow in: communication with other people both inside of a team and with complete strangers.

This year, she walked into the pin-trading area without fear, and as she makes her way into a new chapter of her life in college, she’ll take those skills with her and apply them pin by pin, conversation by conversation.