The Cal Poly Universities Rose Float won the animation award at the 133rd Rose Parade celebration in Pasadena on New Year’s Day, decorated with a “Stargrazers” theme and a scene that includes a cow using a jet pack to soar over a 15-foot moon.
Cal Poly officials said in a news release that “Stargrazers” aimed to exemplify the 2022 theme of “Dream. Believe. Achieve.”
The float mixed the themes of the “Hey Diddle Diddle” nursery rhyme with the “hardworking atmosphere of a college campus,” the news release said.
President Jeffrey Armstrong was in Pasadena for the festivities and saluted all of the hard work that went into the float.
“Proud of all our students! They work throughout the year designing and building the float and gain a true Learn by Doing experience. #CalPolyProud,” Armstrong tweeted Saturday morning.
The float, which appeared toward the end of the morning event in the order of the march, was the culmination of two years of planning after last year’s cancellation of the parade because of COVID-19.
Since 1948, the Cal Poly campuses in San Luis Obispo and Pomona have teamed up to produce the only student-built float in the annual parade.
Students and volunteers spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day decorating the float with flowers and other natural materials.
“All year, while the bovine team has perfected its jet-pack technology, Cal Poly Rose Float students have been building the very frame to hoist the 600-pound cow into the air,” Cal Poly said. “The float also depicts numerous other stages of building: A brown cow tests one of the jet packs, while another wearing glasses and an apron is building a jet pack.”
The bovine flying through the air is held aloft by a jet pack made of metal milk cans and other farm materials.
The float added a late decorative tribute to John Madden, a Mustangs alum and former NFL coach and broadcaster who died Tuesday at age 85. The decoration involved a football and the message, “Madden Ride High.”
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