Colin Sears, a junior in aerospace engineering, and his team spent the weekend keeping track of 260 obscure trivia questions and answers with a spreadsheet. This 26-hour dedication helped them earn first place at the annual Kaleidoquiz (KQ), hosted by KURE 88.5.

“I honestly was surprised that we’d won,” Sears said. “Actually, we thought we were doing really poorly because of our previous records in the past.”

Their team, It’s Just Gumbo, had 20 participants and earned 6,321 points. Sears said his team was beyond excited after hearing they won.

“Only six of us actually stayed up the whole 26 hours, surviving on energy drinks,” Sears said. “The rest of the team was able to come in and do shifts for however long they pleased. One of our teammates, Justin [Biggerstaff], brought so much energy and optimism and kept everyone’s spirits high.”

During the later hours of the contest when Sears’ team was becoming restless, Sears said the slower DJ sets did not help them stay awake.

Ethan Baccam, KQ director and senior in psychology, said that the event went smoother than expected.

“I am really anxious in a way that I always think I forgot something and there’s always something that needs to be done,” Baccam said, “but my team and I, we pulled it off and we did everything that we needed to do.”

For the scavenger hunt, where participants brought in objects that match descriptions, Baccam was surprised to see how creative some teams were.

“Someone brought a snake at one point during the scavenger hunt,” Baccam said. “We thought that was awesome. We needed to give them something for that, so we gave them a signed poster [from KQ staff].”

Even with all the work and planning that goes into creating KQ, events still do not always go accordingly. Baccam said they are often forced to alter the event.

“What’s really awesome about Kaleidoquiz is that it’s improvisational,” Baccam said. “Even if something doesn’t go completely as we thought it would, our team does a really good job improving and adapting to that and making really creative games out of materials we didn’t have planned.”

Baccam said several people working KQ stayed up throughout the entire 26 hours.

“I personally had to wake up at 6 a.m. on Friday just to get everything ready for the 26 hours, and I just took a 30-minute nap with my eyes closed in a dark room,” Baccam said.

The three top teams earned prizes provided by Mayhem Comics. In second place, with 5,491 points, was Fockers. In third place, with 5,430 points, was Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.