University of Tennessee
Materials Science & Engineering Department


Materials Science & Engineering Costume-Trivia Night
Knoxville, TN, October 28, 2021


Part I. Introduction


MSE Advisor, Jake Working, and MSE student ambassador, Mohamed Shoieb, organized and hosted the Materials Science & Engineering Costume-Trivia Night.


Yes, you read that right. It was not an ordinary trivia contest but a costume-trivia party.


The august halls of SERF were filled with students, faculty and staff, all eager to test their trivia mettle. What was at stake?



Part II. Methods


There were nine teams, ostensibly composed of five players each. The Mustangs were composed of MSE faculty and staff.


Jerry and the grad students were formally named, Rios-Lass Boat Skool.


Prof. Haixuan Xu leads the OCEAN research group and members of his research team adopted a seaworthy pirate/viking theme with the team name OCEAN of Knowledge.


The Traveling Waterphone Troupe (also performed with Otamatones) were the ultimate hair band.


We shall see if the MSE Trivia Champs 2021 chose an appropriate name for their team.


Researchers from the Scintillation Materials Research Center made up the SMRTeam


A bold quintet of MSE undergraduates made up Team Spook.


Another quintet of MSE undergraduates made up the Players. We particularly enjoyed Raymond's timely costume, known colloquially as the rabid anti-masker.


Prof. David Harper fearlessly led a team of dedicated MSE graduate students, past and present. Their team was named the Pinewood Nematode Fumigators, after their colleague, Kendhl, who could not join them due to prior fumigating obligations.

Part III. Discussion


In Part III of this documentary, we present action photos from the event as the tense minutes trickled by.


The time lord observes his team-mates as they ponder the questions posed to them on that night.


There is no denying that pirate costumes make you look like a tough crew.


The mustangs read a question with a mixture of attentiveness and resignation.


There was a period in the history of the Traveling Waterphone Troupe, where they, like many a rock band, had a rotating cast of members.


World peace and trivia conquest were on the minds of this ambitious team.


Sarah, piccolo-player extra-ordinaire in the UTK Band, tried her hand at the otamatone.


Some of the questions were shockingly esoteric. Hinkle Fieldhouse? Really?


Some teams were unflappable; the stress of the competition did not make them lose their cool in the slightest...


while other teams had their minds blown by certain questions.


Playing the blame game?

Part IV. Conclusions


The Traveling Waterphone Troupe took home the first-place golden (3-D printed) trophy (note the tensile testing dogbones) for winning the competition. The protests that they had not adhered to the explicitly stated five-person-per-team rule were surprisingly muted.


The Mustangs deservedly won the team award for best team costume.


Frank Holiway's socks clinched the team costume title.


Many of us were not exactly sure who or what Cotton was supposed to be with his twister-mat/tyvex hazardous material outfit, but that did not stop him from winning the best individual costume award.

Thanks to all who participated! A special thanks to Jake Working and the MSE ambassadors for helping to make the University of Tennessee Department of Materials Science and Engineering a special community.

More photos on the Keffer research group site.