The Bent-O-Rama was created by Paul Kimpel and Neal Bussett in 2019 as a tool to help locate Bent monuments on college campuses. The project was rapidly adopted in Southern California, since both Kimpel and Neal are in the San Diego area and could easily apply pressure to the District 16 chapters at their local conferences. However, Association-wide adoption of the project was slow, and came to a halt thanks to the pandemic. By fall 2023, over half of the pins had no information. At this time, Kansas Gamma was expanding its relatively new social media presence, and the chapter was looking to create engaging content and keep its members interested in Tau Beta Pi over winter break. The chapter also struggled to find ways to show members that they are part of a large organization which extends far beyond Manhattan, Kansas.

While en route to Raleigh, North Carolina in December 2023, President Divilbiss began stopping at Bents and posting videos to the chapter's Instagram story. It quickly became clear that the Bent-O-Rama Expedition would be an interesting series of social media posts that could keep members' interest and show them the large scope of Tau Beta Pi. While at HQ in Knoxville, Divilbiss met Pat McDaniel, Director of Marketing and Communication. McDaniel was interested in the Bentspedition and suggested that Divilbiss write an article about the journey. Not yet knowing how large of a project it would become, Divilbiss wasn't sure about the idea. Indeed, he only intended to visit about 44 Bents in total. However, he quickly became obsessed with the project and, after visiting 75 Bents, made the commitment to visit all Tau Beta Pi chapters in the world and complete every listing on the Bent-O-Rama by May 2025. In April 2024, he wrote a piece for THE BENT magazine, which explains the project in better detail. The article is included below.