Prospect High grad leads team that designed award-winning Rose Parade float

A float designed by a Prospect Excessive Faculty graduate for the Cal Poly workforce gained the Extraordinaire Award Jan. 2 within the 134th Rose Parade in Pasadena.

Saira Mapes, a San Jose resident who performed volleyball for Prospect and graduated in 2019 from the Saratoga campus, was the design chair for this yr’s Rose Float workforce in San Luis Obispo. Mapes, an industrial expertise and packaging pupil, was liable for all design elements of “Highway to Reclamation,” the float entry for the Cal Poly campuses in San Luis Obispo and Pomona.

Prospect Excessive Faculty graduate Saira Mapes led the Cal Poly Universities design workforce in creating the “Highway to Reclamation” float, which gained the Extraordinaire Award on the Rose Parade Jan. 2. (Courtesy picture) 

The Extraordinaire Award is granted to the creators of the parade’s most extraordinary float, together with these 55 ft or larger.

Mapes and her pupil teammates, assisted by scores of volunteers, lined their 18- by-55-foot float with about 20,000 colourful blooms—carnations, mums and Gerbera daisies amongst them—and natural supplies reminiscent of cranberries, cornhusks, beans and seeds. “Highway to Reclamation” featured animated snails, gigantic toadstools and different wildlife that may be discovered on the forest flooring.

“Rose float is a big dedication, however I like it,” Mapes mentioned. “Extra time with Rose float means extra time hanging out with my pals.”

Mapes was one among greater than 70 college students, break up evenly between the Pomona and San Luis Obispo universities, who participated in constructing the “Highway to Reclamation” float, which showcased the theme of rebirth and renewal with its design capturing the revitalization of a forest flooring.

“I feel simply the composition of it. It appears like a portray from each angle. I’m extremely proud,” mentioned mechanical engineering pupil Benjamino Cruz, who submitted the unique idea for the float to parade officers.

The 2023 Rose Parade marks the second time the Cal Poly universities have acquired the Extraordinaire Award. In addition they gained for “Far Out Frequencies” in 2019. In whole, Cal Poly groups have gained 62 awards for his or her floats within the 74 years the schools have participated within the parade.