Engineering senior Chao Cai knows his Dance Dance Revolution.
With an audience cheering and the music pounding, Cai performed a flawless routine with a paper bag over his head, preventing him from following the dance video game's on-screen prompts the entire time.
Cai was a contestant in Tuesday night's Mr. and Ms. SEAS competition, the first-ever talent and knowledge pageant for students from the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Five male and five female students, who were nominated by their peers, competed for the two titles.
Judges evaluated the contestants in three rounds -- talent, SEAS trivia and "Engineering wear."
Talents ranged from the serious to the tongue-in-cheek.
Engineering senior Pooja Sethi performed an authentic Indian dance, while fellow senior Steve Muniz presented a video game he had created himself.
But lighter acts, like Cai's dance routine, brought down the packed house.
Engineering sophomore Sarah Jiang performed an engineering-themed parody of the Beach Boys' famous song "Kokomo," likening the Caribbean island to the Engineering School's Wu & Chen auditorium.
"Bio, electrical, ooh I'm gonna fail ya/ ... Computer, materials, come on what's your major?/ ... Systems, chemical, baby why don't we go/ ... down to Wu & Chen," she sang.
Senior Kusha Tavakoli, who dressed up as the ENIAC, a revolutionary computer built at Penn in the 1940s, showed off his psychic powers.
"I wouldn't be the world's first large-scale digital computer if I couldn't predict the future," Tavakoli told the audience.
He answered questions about who would win the competition and what an audience member would have for lunch the following day, but was momentarily stumped when someone asked who built him.
In the "Engineering wear" round, contestants showed off costumes that they thought best represented what it means to be an Engineering student.
Junior Jareau Wade toted a variety of props, including a pillow for sleeping in class and a pizza box -- because "engineers like free food."
Tavakoli showed off his ENIAC costume, which consisted of a large cardboard box with plastic cups for computer knobs.
Unlike the other contestants, Tavakoli chose not to explain his costume.
"If you don't know what this is, you're not an engineer," he said.
After the final round, during which contestants had to explain how they would improve the Engineering School given unlimited resources, the judges crowned Wade and Sethi as the first-ever Mr. and Ms. SEAS.
"I'm overwhelmed with emotion and I'm really glad the event was a success," Sethi said after the competition.
The contest was judged by Computer and Information Science professor Sampath Kannan, Director of Academic Affairs Joseph Sun and career counselor Elizabeth Stanley.
Engineering junior Shannon Hedvat -- president of the Engineering Student Activities Council, which organized the event -- said the contest was intended to "bring together the community and celebrate engineering."
Audience members said the show fulfilled this goal.
"I think it was great. ESAC should organize more of these," first-year graduate student Aditya Toney said.
"I have to give [the contestants] a lot of credit. ... It takes a lot to go up there and do that," Engineering senior Chintan Desai said.
