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Floats for the New Year's Day Tournament of Roses Parade evolved from flower-decorated horse carriages. The carriages evolved into floats. The floats are required to be covered with plant material, living or dead.〔(Tournament of Roses )〕 Originally Tournament of Roses floats were created solely by volunteers from sponsoring communities. Currently, most are built by professional float building companies, and take nearly a year to construct. Some communities and organizational sponsors, such as the City of Burbank, the City of Downey, City of South Pasadena, the City of Sierra Madre, the City of La Cañada Flintridge and the Cal Poly Universities, are referred to as "self-built floats" as they design, construct and decorate their floats solely on volunteer hours. Self built floats look for help year round and are usually willing to teach many skills. If you are interested in volunteering you can find links to their websites here: http://burbankrosefloat.com/links.html The 2010 parade floats included Boy Scouts of America, Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles, New Mexico Tourism Department, Phoenix Satellite Television (U.S.) Inc., Roundtable of Southern California/Shanghai World Expo, and Safety Harbor Kids. The 2010 parade also featured a float from Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods, which set a Guinness world record for longest single-chassis float. The City of West Covina paid tribute to the "service and commitment of the Tuskegee Airmen" with a float, entitled ''"Tuskegee Airmen – A Cut Above"'', which featured a large bald eagle, two replica World War II "Redtails" fighter planes and historical images of some of the airmen who served their country. The float won the Mayor's trophy as the most outstanding city entry – national or international. ==Modern-day process== Directly after the parade, floats are stripped to their chassis. Structural steel elements are reused where possible; organic materials and sculptural steel are recycled. Shortly after each year's parade is over, and the next year's parade theme is announced, the parade sponsors and participating communities start to plan their floats for the following year. A "theme draft" meeting is held in mid-February where builders select their float theme. The Tournament assures that there are not too many similar floats. Characters and other objects on the float are created as separate elements to add later, consisting of a framework of steel and chicken wire. The chassis has beams and steel rod welded to it to support a mesh cover. The float is then "cocooned" in the next process; it is sprayed with a polyvinyl material which acts as a base for inserting decoration. This base is painted with the colors of the flowers to be applied to the float. Every square inch of the exposed surface of a float entered in the Rose Parade strictly must be covered with flowers or other natural materials. These other decorative applicants include bark, seed and leaves. Decorating with the non-perishable materials is performed first. In the days following Christmas, the live additions to the float are applied by volunteers or hired workers. Many people end each day covered in glue and petals. Delicate flowers are placed in individual vials of water and set into the float one-by-one. The Tournament of Roses is the largest consumer of flowers in the world, and flowers arrive from all over the world. Many floats, along with their drive train, include computer-controlled robotic mechanisms to animate the floats. Most float drivers can only see the ground below them. An observer communicates by intercom to the driver. Most observers are hidden within the float and have limited visibility. Each float has a Tournament Member (Float Liaison) assigned to it who shepherds the float from the float barn to the formation area and down the parade route. Most ride on motor scooters although some walk. The Float Liaisons communicate with the float's observer by hand signals. At the two corners other Tournament Members direct the floats in addition to the Float Liaisons. It is estimated that it takes 60 volunteers working 10 hours a day for 10 days to decorate one float.〔(Gardening : Roses : Making the Floats : Home & Garden Television )〕 * 20 daisies, 30 roses or 36 marigolds will cover one square foot of a float area * Over 500,000 roses (in vials) used in the parade * 15 tons of steel along with of chicken wire for the framework of a float * 600 tons of steel, 5,000 gallons of glue and 18 million flowers are used to make the floats each year * 935 “white-suiters” spent 80,000 hours to manpower and plan the parade * Floats must collapse to no more than . high, to pass under a freeway overpass * Natural materials, such as bark, seeds, leaves and flowers, shall cover the floats * Twenty-four awards for some 50 float entries * Length of parade is , about 2.25 hours long at per hour pace〔(Pasadena Official Visitors Guide )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tournament of Roses floats」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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