Cal Poly announces design for 2022 Rose Parade float. Here is where it drew inspiration
After a dormant year due to the coronavirus, Pasadena will host the Rose Parade again in 2022 — and the Cal Poly Rose Float team is back in action.
Cal Poly’s 2022 Rose Parade float will feature a cow jumping over the moon, and is inspired by the Mother Goose nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle,” according to a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo news release.
The float, titled “Stargrazers,” will showcase a 600-pound cow jumping over a 15-foot tall moon using a jet pack made out of metal milk cans. Other farm animals will be built into the float — all working together to launch the cow over the moon, including one cow building a jet pack, another cow testing a jet pack, a cat typing on the computer and a dog watching the launch through a telescope.
“Stargrazers mixes the whimsy of the nursery rhyme with the hardworking atmosphere of a college campus,” the news release read.
The float represents the teamwork that goes into building a Rose Parade entry.
“Just like our cows building their jet packs, it will take building, making mistakes, un-building, and building again for us to make this float look how it looks on parade day,” Avi McManus, vice president of the San Luis Obispo team, said in the news release.
The float fits in with the Rose Parade’s theme: “Dream. Believe. Achieve.” — which “celebrates education’s ability to open doors, open minds and change lives,” the news release read.
“As college students, we are just taking our first steps in our various careers and industries. It is the power of education, the power to try and fail and then to try again, that will allow us to achieve whatever our personal ‘over the moon’ is,” Cal Poly Pomona team president Christopher Nares said in the news release.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona are collaborating to build the float, with 20 students from Pomona building the front half of the chassis and 20 from San Luis Obispo building the back half. In mid-October, the two teams will connect the two halves of the chassis in Pomona, according to the news release.
This will be the 73rd time Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Pomona have partnered to make a float for the Rose Parade.
The 133rd Rose Parade will step off at 8 a.m. Jan. 1, 2022, along Colorado Boulevard. The parade route is 5.5 miles long. In 2020, 700,000 people watched in person and 70 million on TV.
“Our team has been working on and refining this design for two years now, and I think all that hard work has really paid off,” Regina Chapuis, president of the Cal Poly team in San Luis Obispo, said in the news release.
To learn more about the Cal Poly Rose Float, go to https://www.facebook.com/rosefloat.
