Cal Poly Rose Float Celebrates the ‘Best Day Ever’ at the Lake with Nessie

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Cal Poly Rose Float Celebrates the ‘Best Day Ever’ at the Lake with Nessie
Cal Poly Rose Float Celebrates the ‘Best Day Ever’ at the Lake with Nessie
Photo credit: Cal Poly Universities Rose Float Team

Overcoming her fears, Nessie the Loch Ness Monster surfaces from the depths to join her new land-dwelling friends in “Nessie’s Lakeside Laughs,” the Cal Poly Universities’ Rose Float team’s 2025 entry for the 136th Rose Parade on Jan. 1.

Measuring 55 feet long, 21 feet high and 17 feet wide, the float depicts an animated lakeside party featuring puffins sliding down Nessie’s fin, beavers crafting with found driftwood, a Scottish terrier riding a paddleboat on the Loch, and a smiling Highland cow spinning in an innertube. The happy payoff for Nessie’s bravery honors the 2025 Rose Parade theme “Best Day Ever!”

“The inspiration for this float comes from that place of terrifying wonder, when you discover something new and end up enjoying it to the fullest,” said Pomona team president and engineering senior Brooke Handschin and San Luis Obispo team president and master’s student Collin Marfia in a joint statement.

The Cal Poly Universities’ Rose Float is the only student-designed and constructed entry in the Rose Parade. A joint effort of student from Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, team has won 62 awards since its parade debut in 1949. The 2024 entry “Shock n’ Roll: Powering the Musical Current” won the Crown City Innovator Award, which recognizes innovations in technology and imagination.

The animations for “Nessie’s Lakeside Laughs” will be controlled by the team’s newly designed and built animation system. Most of the mechanisms will be powered hydraulically, with smaller elements controlled through electric power. Audiences can expect Nessie, towering at 22 feet, to move her neck and head to survey her friends sliding, paddling and playing in the water.

Bringing the scene to life are florals and dry plant materials that “take advantage of the vibrant colors and unique textures of a lake and the animals who inherit it,” said Handschin and Marfia.  The lake will be mostly made of blooms such as irises, roses and baby’s breath. Dry materials like black moss, cotton and coconut husks will cover the land animals. Nessie’s body will incorporate both fresh and dry materials to symbolize her newfound connection to the land animals

Designing and building the float is nearly a year-long process for the team, and involves building, adjusting and fine-tuning the mechanical, drive and animation systems; welding the structural supports and shaping the design elements; testing decorative material; sheeting and foaming before the students can begin adding final design elements.

Cal Poly Pomona traditionally builds the front half of the float base (known as the pod), while students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo build the back. Design elements are shaped by both teams, who join the two halves in Pomona later in the fall. Students will continue to build the float through the fall semester while balancing their studies and completing final exams until it is ready to join other float entries to be evaluated by Rose Parade judges on Dec. 31.

“We are both most excited to see all our team’s hard work come to fruition on New Year’s Day,” said Handschin and Marfia. “When people see the float come down Colorado Boulevard, they’ll see a beautiful float with Nessie and her friends. We’ll see that too — but we’ll also see every step that our team went through to get there.”

Read more stories about the Cal Poly Universities Rose Float.

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