From 4 p.m. Friday afternoon to 6 p.m. Saturday, a bunch of Happy Tater Tots, Flaming Virgins and Batter Dipped Crow Crispitos On Sticks spent an entire day cavorting around campus and the Ames area in search of sex toys and answers to trivia questions.

KURE’s 37th annual Kaleidoquiz took place this weekend. The contest mixes scavenger hunts, music and movie montages, and trivia contests in a yearly 26-hour radio broadcast event.

Teams, which ranged in number from 12 to 30 participants, registered to compete. For some teams, Kaleidoquiz (or KQ) has become a yearly tradition. Harwood house in Old RCA, also known as the Irrepressible Lawn Gnomes, has formed a team for the past few years and even taken home the first-place trophy a few times, this year included.

Chris Crouch, KQ director for KURE, said the event went smoothly this year. He was particularly pleased that all 10 teams made it through the marathon competition.

“Everyone who started at 4 p.m. on Friday was there at 6 p.m. on Saturday,” he said. “I don’t know if that makes this the year of the iron man or not.”

KQ hasn’t always gone off without a hitch, Crouch said. Sometimes, an issue can develop with the point totals, he said.

“There’ve been times when we’ve made mistakes or teams have made mistakes counting up points,” he said. “Apparantly we had a bunch of good mathematicians this year. We didn’t get any complaints, so hopefully that means there were none.”

This year, first and second place finished extremely close to each other, with the Irrepressible Lawn Gnomes edging out the Flaming Virgins.

“It was only 15 points that separated the two teams after thousands upon thousands of points,” Crouch said.

One problem that did affect the proceedings was the bad weather Friday night. The blowing snow made most travel difficult, especially when all teams had to periodically report in to the KURE station.

“For any team, even the ones in old RCA, that’s far away. It’s usually quicker to drive. But it may not have been with the weather. With the blizzard-like conditions, we had to drive a lot slower,” said Jeremy Natoli, captain of the Flaming Virgins.

Matt Sawka, member of the Irrepressible Lawn Gnomes, agreed the weather made things difficult at times.

“With the snow, sliding around from Friley to here or somewhere else was interesting,” he said.

The KQ committee also had to cancel a few of the traveling questions due to the weather.

“We had to cancel one of our traveling questions around Ames,” Crouch said.

In past years, the event has been famous for crazy questions that require teams to gather seemingly random lists of items in hopes of adding to their point totals.

“We usually have to stop by Peepland or Pleasure Palace for something,” Natoli said. “This year it was Astro-glide.”

Crouch denies that teams “have to go” to these places to get the objects on the list, even Astro-glide.

“You can get that at Hy-Vee, I think,” he said. “There were probably people who had Astro-glide but didn’t want to admit it. So they said, `We’ve got to go somewhere and get some.’ Every team came in with a new tube.”

Natoli said the search for sexual lubricant wasn’t as awkward as one might think.

“Usually the organizers tell the businesses in advance. If the other teams get there before you, they get the strange looks. We got there a little later. By that point, they had it up on the counter, with a sign that said `No Refunds.'”

The teams can rack up a pretty hefty expense getting all the items, but Crouch said many of the purchases are returned the next day.

“One of the items was a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen video,” he said. “I think Wal-Mart had their biggest night for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen video purchases. But they’re probably going to have their biggest day of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen returns.”

Crouch says the KQ committee always makes sure to “keep the randomness of the event going.”

That means not always being completely clear with contestants.

“The quiz we had for the biggest flirt was fun. So all the teams sent down who they thought would do the best in a flirting contest. But we had questions like, `Within 500 points what was the Dow Jones industrial average at close on Thursday night?'” he said.

But even though the event runs straight through more than a day, the participants seem to enjoy the memories and experiences of KQ.

Sawka said his team enjoyed one particular excursion this year.

“We brought a six-pack of Corona to the gyro guy’s house to try and get him to take a picture with our group. He let us take it. We got to keep the six-pack though.”