Cal Poly Update | April 2007 | Rose Float Has a New Lab

Cal Poly’s Rose Float Club Gains New Lab --
Preps Float for Poly Royal Parade

SAN LUIS OBISPO – Every year since 1949, students from Cal Poly and CSU Pomona have worked together to “Learn by Doing” and create an entry for the annual Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena. This year, the Cal Poly Rose Float has a new home on campus -- and a spot in the upcoming Poly Royal parade.

Photo of two students with polar bear float head Traditionally, the Cal Poly Rose Float club builds the back half of the float in San Luis Obispo and maintains the drive engine, while Pomona works on the front half and the animation engine. Students and parents work together in Pasadena in the days before the parade to decorate the float with thousands of flowers.

San Luis Obispo’s half of the 2007 float ("Arctic Antics") was loaded onto a semi-truck flatbed in mid-March to make the 230 mile journey "home" from Pomona to San Luis Obispo.

This year, the float had a special welcome waiting for it—a brand new lab.

The new lab was built specifically to house the rose float and was specially designed for the program, with separate bays for machining, hydraulics, electronics, decorations, raw steel supplies, and an office for the club.

The 2007 Rose Float team is gearing down to prepare the float for another kind of parade: the Cal Poly Open House parade.

"Instead of the white roses used for snow and coconut for polar bear fur, this float will feature the raw, solid backbone to any kind of float: steel," explained current student and 2007 Rose Float Club member Breana Dixon.

"There’s a lot more to a float that just flowers, and there’s a ton of fun to be had with welders, blow torches, and power drills."

The Cal Poly float is the only entirely student, self-built float.

"People don't usually think about or realize the amount of year-round work that goes on behind the scenes in order to bring their float to life," Dixon said.

Click on the photo above to see the slide show from the 2007 Rose Parade in Pasadena. You will need Adobe Flash Player to view the slideshow.

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While some of the students will be getting acquainted with the new lab and preparing the float for Open House, others will be busy planning for the 2008 Rose Parade. The process is already well underway.

The top entries from the Design Contest were selected by joint vote of the San Luis Obispo team and the Pomona committee. The Tournament of Roses has approved the designs, and in March the two teams met in San Luis Obispo to hammer out all the details of the design, decorations, and construction.

The Cal Poly Rose Float Program is a program of Associated Students, Inc. More information about the Cal Poly Rose Float is available at www.asi.calpoly.edu/rose float.

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