THANK YOU FOR SUBMITTING CONCEPTS!

Thank you to everyone who submitted their concepts for the 2025 Rose Float Concept Contest! Our leadership team is hard at work making the 76th Cal Poly Rose Float for the 136th Rose Parade! Remember to look out for the winning concept announced later this year. Once again, thank you to everyone who submitted their concepts, we enjoyed each and every one.

The winning concept will be revealed by both campuses in the fall.

76th Cal Poly Rose Float

The theme of the 2025 Rose Parade is: “Best Day Ever”. The 2025 theme celebrates life’s best moments – those unexpected times that bring a smile, warm our hearts and fill us with joy. From a once-in-a-lifetime experience to the simplest pleasures, each is indelibly etched into our memory. Together, we celebrate where we’ve been and what we look forward to. It’s about family, friends, and community and what we have to celebrate – and to be thankful for. On New Year’s Day and throughout the year, let’s celebrate the times that make up our “Best Day Ever”! 

This will be Cal Poly Universities 76th entry and the winning concept will cruise down Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena, California as part of the 136th Rose Parade which will be held on Jan. 1, 2025.

Cal Poly Rose Float is the only student-built float in the Rose Parade and has been invited to participate for 76 consecutive years. For questions or more information, contact: 

Josh D’Acquisto at (805) 756-1182 or at jdacquis@calpoly.edu or Cary Khatab at (909) 869-3204 or at kkhatab@cpp.edu

Cal Poly Rose Float

SHOCK N’ ROLL:

POWERING THE MUSICAL CURRENT

wins Crown CITY Innovator Award!

Check out the highlights!

“Cal Poly Always brings it for New Year’s – A Work of Animated Art” — KTLA-5, 1/1 (Video)
Three-minute pre-parade feature about the process of creating the 2024 Cal Poly Universities float “Shock n’ Roll: Powering the Musical Current.” Multiple student leaders are interviewed including fourth-year electrical engineering major and CPP Rose Float team president Matthew Rodarte and second-year landscape architecture major and Decorations Chair Bailey Beene.

Pre-Parade Interview, KTLA-5 Rose Parade Live Coverage — KTLA-5, 1/1 (Video)
Brooke Handschin, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student and the Cal Poly Universities Rose Float Pomona team Construction Chair, had the honor of driving their 2024 entry “Shock n’ Roll: Powering the Musical Current.” In this live interview, she describes the float’s animations.

“Cal Poly Universities Rose Float student leaders: The origins of 'Shock n' Roll'” — ABC/ESPN Rose Parade, 1/1 (Video)
Pre-parade feature on “Shock n’ Roll: Powering the Musical Current,” the 2024 entry of the Cal Poly Universities Rose Float team. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the collaboration between Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Pomona team president Matthew Rodarte (‘25, electrical engineering) and San Luis Obispo president Quinn Akemon (‘24, plant science) describe the design and construction journey of the float from concept to parade day.

“Cal Poly wins Crown Innovators Award in 135th Rose Parade in Pasadena” — KSBY-TV/NBC-6 (San Luis Obispo, Calif.), 1/1
The Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student Rose Float team wins their 62nd accolade — the Crown City Innovator Award, which recognizes innovations in technology and imagination. Among the stand-out innovations on the float is a new state of the art animation system to power all of the float’s movement.
Also: “Cal Poly float awarded for most outstanding use of imagination, innovation” — Paso Robles Daily News, 1/2

“Building This Rose Parade Float Taught College Students What Classes Didn’t” — KPCC 89.3 FM / LAist, 1/1
Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Rose Parade 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,” says Matthew Rodarte, a fourth-year electrical engineering major and president of the Cal Poly Pomona Rose Float student team. (Audio version)

“Cal Poly students wrap construction on university’s 75th Rose Parade float” — Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, 12/20

“The level of thought and planning that goes into every little detail of each and every one of these parts is insane,” said Cal Poly Universities Rose Float Pomona team president Matthew Rodarte (‘25, electrical engineering). “Your element has to elevate the rest of the flow and make everyone else’s work stand out. Your goal was to take a bunch of discrete parts and turn them into something awesome.”

“Cal Poly Celebrates 75th Rose Parade Float” — NBC 4 Los Angeles, 12/19 (Video)
A sneak peek at “Shock n’ Roll: Powering the Musical Current,” the 75th Rose Parade float designed and built by student teams from Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Each school worked on one half of the float, which was joined together in late October when San Luis Obispo students drove their half down to Pomona. The Cal Poly Universities Rose Floats have the distinction of being the only student-designed and student-built float in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade.
Also: “‘To me, this is everything’: Cal Poly students add finishing touches to 75th Rose Parade float” — KSBY/NBC-6 (San Luis Obispo, Calif.), 12/20

“Volunteers putting final floral touches on 2024 Rose Parade floats” — Pasadena Star-News, 12/29
Story features the Cal Poly Universities float and CPP alumni, who were among hundreds of volunteers helping put the finishing touches on “Shock n’ Roll: Powering the Musical Current” during Deco Week. Alumnae interviewed include Michele Gendreau (‘83, hospitality management), director of food and beverage at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and Anna Marie Larrabure (‘12, business administration), CPP director of budget planning and analysis.

Shock N’ Roll: Powering the Musical Current embraces the idea that community and harmony can exist in any environment. Viewers experience wonder as they watch electric underwater creatures power and bring life to their musical community.

Our float tells the story of a community of electric eels and rays living in a sea of electric instruments. All the uniquely dynamic and energizing creatures come together to exist in harmony with one another, providing life and music to the sea. 

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.

Future Events

TBA