The Brief

How do you measure the rewards for the makers and sponsors of most of the several dozen floats set to roll down Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena on Jan. 1?

For some it’s a paycheck, public relations points, and civic pride as millions of people watch the broadcast. But for the makers of one, and only one float, the rewards are largely about learning by doing through collaboration.

“We are a student leadership development program that happens to have a float building problem,” said Quinn Akemon, a fifth year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and president of their campus’ float building program.

This will be the 75th year that students from the San Luis Obispo and the Cal Poly Pomona campuses team up to design and build a Rose Parade Float. Guided by one campus advisor, the students decide what the float will look like, how it will move, and what flowers and plants it will be decorated with.

Lesson 1: Show what you're capable of

Putting students at the center of the process can “show the world what Cal Poly students are capable of if you give them the opportunity to be autonomous and work hard and really show that learn-by-doing spirit that we're taught on our campuses,” Akemon said.

The two schools’ float programs stand as an example of how collaboration can be taught in college as employers bemoan that college graduates aren’t ready to work on teams in the workplace.

“I 100% believe that this program has altered the trajectory of my life in a more positive way than anything else could,” said Matthew Rodarte, a fourth year electrical engineering major at Cal Poly Pomona who’s president of his campus float program.

The Pasadena Tournament of Roses said it costs at least $275,000 to build “a high quality float” — and prices go up significantly with size and sophisticated animation.

Most of the roughly 45 parade floats are made by professional builders. Only six are “self built” floats, like the Cal Poly float. And the Cal Poly float is the only one entirely built and designed by students.

This year’s Cal Poly float is called “Shock and Roll: Powering the Musical Current,” keeping with the 2024 parade’s music theme. Roses, marigolds, chrysanthemums and other flowers and plants will decorate figures of sea life that include features an eel playing a Gibson Flying V guitar and a giant scallop DJing a record..

“Shock and Roll: Powering the Musical Current” is the 2024 Rose Parade float designed and built entirely by students at Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispp

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Courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona

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A Cal Poly Pomona spokesperson didn’t give the price tag for the float but said costs are kept down through financial donations, and by re-using construction material, and growing some of the flowers and plants on campus that’ll be used to decorate the float.

And labor is free.

The students working on the float, including the 25 who are the core of the leadership team, do not receive academic credit or payment for their effort.

“I explicitly took a floral design class where I learned how to make floral arrangements on the Cal Poly SLO campus in order to know more so I could bring it to float building,” Akemon said. They’re a plant science major.

Lesson 2: Engineering is only a small part of building

Akemon and Rodarte say the program attracts engineers but there are also architecture and art students working on the float too — “people that just really have an understanding of this design, feedback, making-adjustments process that really follows us the entire year,” Akemon said.

Matthew Rodarte and Quinn Akemon on the 2024 Cal Poly Universities Rose Float, Shock and Roll at the Cal Poly Pomona Rose Float lab December 19, 2023.

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Tom Zasadzinski

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Courtesy Cal Poly Pomona

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Akemon said some of the students are interested in using their design and project management experience working on the float to apply for jobs at entertainment companies like Disney.

Rodarte’s worked on the Cal Poly floats for three years now and has tried to do tasks outside his comfort zone, such as working to shape the float’s frame.

“We were working on our new animation system and we were unable to get a signal out of it. So we brought in the oscilloscope,” Rodarte said, and he stepped in to operate the device because the younger electrical engineering students hadn’t learned to use it yet.

(An oscilloscope is a device that measures electrical voltage and displays it as a wave form on a sandwich-bread sized screen.)

Rodarte is working on his senior project using sensor technology to power a home entertainment system. He’s emerged as one of the project’s leaders, he said, something he attributes to his multi-year experience in the float program.

“I'm a much better communicator. Every time I have to do a public speaking [in an] exam or a presentation in one of my engineering classes, my classmates always come up to me and be like, Whoa, how did you do that?,” he said.

There’s been some hand wringing in recent years about whether colleges and universities are doing enough to teach students collaboration and teamwork skills in classrooms. According to a 2021 survey conducted by the Association of American Colleges & Universities, nearly two-thirds of employers said they value employees who work well in teams but fewer than half believed college graduates have those skills.

Lesson 3: When it’s time to relax, enjoy the fruits of your labor

Akemon, Rodarte and other students who worked on the float are set to watch the Rose Parade from complimentary seats in bleachers along the parade route.

“You can't even hear yourself think over the just absolute chaos that happens in our student section when our float comes past,” Akemon said.

That chaos, Akemon and Rodarte said, is students wanting the world to know how much love and care they put into this work of art.

The California Science Center unveiled Tuesday the first of many launch vehicles, engines and other artifacts set to be installed in the museum’s 200,000-square-foot expansion coming to Exposition Park.

Once complete, the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will include multi-level galleries built around a towering centerpiece — the space shuttle Endeavour — displayed in its 20-story vertical launch position.

It’ll be the only place in the world where visitors can see an authentic space shuttle in its “Go for Stack” position, which is what museum officials called the process of moving each of the space shuttle components into place.

Museum admission will be free.

Jeff Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center, said the $450 million expansion is California’s biggest “endeavor” yet to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers and explorers.

“The enthusiasm that people have when they come in and see this stuff and get excited about it will hopefully lead to many more people, young and old, but particularly young people wanting to pursue more education in science,” Rudolph told LAist.

Museum officials expect to announce next year an opening date, according to Rudolph.

A look inside the center

The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will feature three main galleries: the Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, the Korean Air Aviation Gallery and the Kent Kresa Space Gallery.

Guests will be guided through hundreds of exhibits and authentic artifacts focused on the exploration of the universe — including rocket ships that carried humans into space and telescopes used to view stars and galaxies beyond our reach.

A real Electron launch vehicle from Rocket Lab in Long Beach spans several stories tall in the Kent Kresa Space Gallery.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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The first artifacts in the expanded museum were placed in the Kenta Kresa Space Gallery, including a three-story-tall Electron launch vehicle from Rocket Lab in Long Beach.

Adam Spice, chief financial officer of Rocket Lab, told LAist the Electron helped lower the cost of getting to space by sending satellites in smaller, cheaper rockets. The new center is an opportunity to get up close and personal with an Electron for the first time outside of a factory.

Spice said he hopes it’ll show visitors their dreams can become a reality.

“They can be part of something much bigger than probably they ever thought they could,” he said.

The first artifacts installed in the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center include a solid rocket booster segment. Kenneth Phillips, aerospace curator, shows the scale of the piece, which has flown into space several times.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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The solid rocket booster segment will become a walk-through interactive experience in the Kent Kresa Space Gallery.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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A segment of a solid rocket booster that flew into space several times is laid on its side on the second floor of the gallery.

Kenneth Phillips, the California Science Center’s aerospace curator, told LAist it’ll be turned into an interactive exhibit with audio, video and educational graphics.

“It's 12 feet in diameter, so people can actually walk through it and learn about the function of it from the inside out literally,” Phillips said.

Visitors will be able to get up close and personal with a space shuttle main engine.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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A detailed model of a space shuttle main engine is set up next to the solid rocket booster. Three of those main engines helped boost space shuttles into orbit by providing about 20% of their power, Phillips said.

What's next

Construction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center started more than three years ago and is on track to be completed in the coming weeks, according to museum officials.

With construction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center weeks away from completion, crews have started to put in landscaping around the outside of the expansion.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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The exterior of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center as of Tuesday.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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The remaining exhibits and artifacts will then be installed over "many months," Rudolph said. Officials expect to announce next year an opening date for the expansion.

The California Science Center also is looking to raise about $70 million more for the $450 million project before it opens. You can learn more about its “EndeavourLA” fundraising campaign here.

Catch up on our coverage ...

• Last chance to see the Endeavour before the space shuttle is taken off public display indefinitely
• Another major milestone for the space shuttle Endeavour’s 'Go For Stack' mission is here
• The final lift for space shuttle Endeavour’s 'Go For Stack' mission
• The Endeavour’s new home is more than halfway done. Here’s a first look at the exhibits
• The Endeavour space shuttle’s new home is inching closer to completion