Cal Poly Rose Float’s 77th float is now under construction!

 TEAMWORK! This first half of the year, Rose Float has hard at work imagining, developing, and preparing for this year's Pasadena Tournament of Roses Rose Parade. The selection of this year's float concept has been followed up with several vital meetings between SLO and Pomona. At these meetings, our departments have been achieving their own goals with Design and Construction developing the physical shape of the float, Operations showing off their marketing skills designing new merch, and Decorations planting and harvesting some of the materials that will bring the float to life! BUT that’s not it for the summer… lab days already taking place and construction of the float HAS BEGUN!

Pasadena Tournament of Roses 137th parade theme!

“The Magic in Teamwork”

“The theme celebrates the sense of accomplishment in knowing that by working together, we can collectively achieve outcomes so much richer than we can ever experience as individuals.”

For the last 76 years, Cal Poly Rose Float has truly demonstrated the Magic In Teamwork! Despite the over 200 miles of separation between them, CPRF students from the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona campuses are in constant collaboration with one another. From planning meetings to those late nights decorating in Pasadena, we are always celebrating our togetherness and our unifying goal: constructing, designing, and decorating another award-winning float!

This will be Cal Poly Universities 77th entry and will cruise down Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena, California as part of the 137th Rose Parade which will be held on Jan. 1, 2026.

The concept of the 77th float for 2026 will be revealed by Pomona and San Luis Obispo campus press releases in the Fall.

Direct Donations through Amazon!

Cal Poly Rose Float’s success depends on the support of our wonderful community of students, alumni, volunteers, faculty/staff, vendors, donors, and more. One of the many ways to support our team is donations through our Amazon Wishlists. You will find specific materials needed by our different departments that can be directly donated to our facilities. To access all lists from each department at once, sign into your Amazon account. Thank you for all of your support!

What is Cal Poly Rose FLoat?

Cal Poly Rose Float is a joint effort between Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo universities to enter a student-built float in the annual Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association’s Rose Parade. Both Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo are the two designated Polytechnic universities within the 23-campus California State University System (the largest four-year public university system in the U.S.).

Since 1949, Cal Poly Rose Float has continuously designed, built, financed, and decorated the float-entry in the annual Parade. Over the last 74 years, Cal Poly Rose Float has been awarded a total of 61 awards/trophies (about 83% of all participating years).

More importantly, Cal Poly Rose Float has been a tremendous leader in the introduction of new technology to the Parade. This includes the first use of:

• Hydraulics for animation in 1968.

• Computer-controlled animation in 1978.

• Fiber optics in 1982.

• Animated decorations in 2014.

• Color-changing floral effect in 2017.

This program is one of the longest consecutive running self-built entries in the parade, as well as the only "student self-built" float designed and constructed entirely by students year-round on two campuses. They compete against professional float builders who manufacture entries for sponsors, many of them with development budgets approaching $1 million. This tradition continues today and marks the partnership between the two campuses.