2025 Recap & Winners

Overall Prize: Goatzilla

Goatzilla smashed into 2025 with incredible work that seriously impressed all of the judges – so much artistic talent, creative video editing, and always going the extra step to see what can make an item stand out. Some of our favorites were the medium-sized medium, the Nikola Tesla musical, caffeine painting, horror nursery rhyme, published Op-Ed, knitted sweater, and the installed signage on an elephant path. Outstanding work!

Runner Ups:

• Funky Ruckus: 6,384
• Circus Noir: 5,692
• Quatotic Queers: 5,104
• Veni: 5,090

Judge’s Prize: Whose Fork Is This

Both our favorite to give and the hardest to agree on. With more than 1,600 submissions there’s a lot to discuss!

This year’s winner is not for one specific item, but for a person/team who had a number of incredible submissions. As we were narrowing down our favorites, Whose Fork is it This had multiple items in our top contenders. Rather than picking one above the others, we are awarding the judge’s prize for the collective impact of these submissions. They show incredible staging and photography, attention to detail, creativity, and the power of making connections. We also loved that the pieces for the Cyrus Kabiru item were scavenged from a field near an abandoned plant.

Runner Ups:
Our runner’s up in this category impressed us with their photography / staging, artistry, honesty, silliness, and ability to spread spontaneous joy to the community.

• Bloodhounds: Carrot Top (054)
• Love Me Some Pie – Knock out a task (84)
• Love Me Some Pie – Knit a Poncho out of Lights (94)
• VIDI: Trail Run Finish Line (034)
• Wayward Funshines: Bread Conductor (046)

Altruist Prize: Circus Noir

In a Rogue first, Goatzilla scored the top points in both team categories, but as they can only win one prize per year* the Altruist prize is passed on to second place. However, since Funky Ruckus won this category in 2024* they are also ineligible for the prize. Circus Noir snuck into third place, just 35 points ahead of the next team. Their creative approach earned them bonus points on a number of their Altruism items. We were particularly fond of their chalk affirmation, appreciated their contribution to No Decisions Without Us, and were impressed by their incredible fundraising work for APOPO.

*Please review rules 12 and 14

Runner Ups:

• Goatzilla: 816
• Funky Ruckus: 814
• Circus Noir: 741
• Dumbledorks: 705
• VIDI: 700

Item Specific Prize – Griffwishes in my Tardis

“Don’t you try to out-weird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.” – Douglas Adams

Your items for #42 were certainly weird…, funny, thought-provoking, and mathematically complicated. We loved seeing the wide variety of answers and the proofs accompanying them. This year’s winner goes to a team who not only made us laugh out loud with their answer, but also did some incredible camera work and video editing. Really impressive work Griffwishes in my Tardis!

Runner Ups:

Congrats also to Panty Passers (the fact that this math works blows our mind) and Goatzilla (Your costuming, acting, and editing for this is wonderful!)

Starfish Team: Los Pajaritos de la Alegria

This year we invited our Starfish Scholars (ages 13 – 18) to compete with a shortened version of the Rogue Hunt list. They had one afternoon and 15 items. With nine teams competing, Los Pajaritos de la Alegria was the only team to complete all 15 items; they earned 428 points – more than 100 points head of the second place team!

Runner Ups:

• Gossip Girls: 297
• Los Lideres: 285