At 5 p.m. Friday, radio station KURE kicked off the 41st KaleidoQuiz.

We Drink Your Milkshake, last year’s fourth-place KaleidoQuiz team, under the name “The Truthiness Shall set you Free,” was hoping to redeem themselves and return to the top three.

The team began the struggle at the 28-screen Helser Hall computer lab, the same home-base they used in the 2006 competition.

The event was jump-started less than 30 minutes in when a music montage supplemented the normal questions. However, the team’s unfamiliarity with the music meant they were only able to identify a few of the 20 songs in the montage, so they failed to conquer the challenge.

We Drink Your Milkshake was led by Jonathan Roberts, senior in industrial engineering. He led the team, directing the other members through the challenges and questions delivered at six-minute intervals. This was Roberts’ fourth KQ.

Last year, the event added high-tech touches by incorporating YouTube and Wikipedia into the challenges. This year there wasn’t anything quite as new, but contestants became even more adept at using Google searches than in the past, when the technique short-circuited a great deal of questions. Facebook came in handy on a handful of questions, as well.

A common topic was the 2006 Will Ferrell comedy “Stranger Than Fiction.” Last year, several questions asked about the 1990s animated television series “Animaniacs” and “Pinky and the Brain.”

Over the next several hours, a second music montage came up alongside the “normal” questions and challenges. The team stayed competitive, and the number of active participants peaked at around 8 p.m., when each computer in the lab was being used – a few had two people seated at them.

As midnight approached, the team had yet to compete very well in challenges such as “Guitar Hero.” However, the team brought in about two-thirds of the points possible from the first scavenger hunt – items required included a political lawn sign and a bra of every size.

The movie montage began just as midnight struck. It was composed of clips incorporating the famous “Wilhelm scream” heard in such films as “Star Wars” and “Ghostbusters.” The first set of team rankings was also announced – We Drink Your Milkshake was in fifth place and was exactly 100 points behind the second-place team.

“Usually [KURE] is a little more consistent with updates throughout the competition,” Roberts said.

At 1 a.m., a challenge required the teams to write a poem about how much they envy someone. At 2 a.m., there was yet another music montage, and a second scavenger hunt started at 3 a.m. – items for this one included a vinyl record, various national currencies and jarred pigs’ feet.

Twelve hours into KQ, the team had thinned out.

“This is the part of the morning where those who survived the beginnings and through the wee hours of the morning are still trying to hang on,” Roberts said. “You lose some of your team and kinda hope some people come back – but this is where the hardcore people stay and help out.”

Another score update came in – the team was up to third place.

Noon approached in what seemed like the final stretch. It didn’t turn that way.

“We kinda had a slump in our team numbers. A lot of us are going on little sleep, and that kinda weighs down on some people,” Roberts said. “We didn’t get a montage in time and didn’t get people to compete well in a challenge, but that’s just KQ.”

At 1:30 p.m., yet another montage came in, and unlike most of the montages, it went very well from the start – only a couple of items were unknown after just two hearings.

In the end, We Drink Your Milkshake finished fourth yet again. The team Move Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Betch climbed from 13th to third over the course of 14 hours.