UFOs, piranha plants and chocolate waterfalls are just a few elements decorating Palo Alto High School students’ Spirit Week floats, which will be presented during the rally at 2:40 p.m. after school tomorrow on the football field.
Since last Saturday, students have been hard at work brainstorming, planning and designing their class float around their Spirit Week themes: “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” for freshmen, “Super Mario Bros” for sophomores, “Pirates” for juniors and “Out of this World” for seniors. According to sophomore class president David Wu, the amount of work his classmates have accomplished over the span of five days is impressive.
“Everyone is working together, showcasing sophomore spirit,” Wu said. “It’s very amazing to see all this coming together in such an outstanding final product.”
Wu said the sophomores’ class float is based on their Spirit Week theme, “Super Mario Bros.”
“One of the sides [of the float] is the Mario Overworld, so mystery boxes, bullets, piranha plants,” Wu said. “And then the other side is a mixture between Bowser’s Castle and Peach’s Castle. A lot of the inspiration is drawn from the entire Mario franchise – all the games and movies.”
According to senior Mireia Blasi, the seniors are also taking creative liberties with their alien theme.
“We have UFOs, we have a galaxy, we have a space capsule, and we also are going to have planets,” Blasi said. “My favorite is the UFO on the back that’s crashing into the floor, just because it’s really big and I think it’s really cool.”
Despite not attending float building last year, Blasi said she is glad to have joined her classmates this week.
“I didn’t come to many [float building sessions] last year, but this year it’s just been a lot of fun,” Blasi said. “People bring together the paper mache for the planet in a big circle. It’s really fun to watch.”
Featuring a vibrant blue waterfall, tropical green plants and a shiny gold treasure chest, the juniors’ float centers around their theme of pirates. According to junior Senator Samantha Fan, the float incorporates many of these elements.
“Float building is going great for the juniors,” Fan said. “Our float follows our theme pirates, with one side being the pirate ship in the ocean and a sea monster attacking it, and the other side being an island and finding the treasure on the island.”
Teamwork was a large part of the design process, which Fan said helped work through problems that came up.
“We definitely hit a few bumps along the road, with our materials not arriving on time for our ship, so we had to improvise,” Fan said. “Our palm tree collapsed on the last day of float building. But all the juniors did a great job to solve any issues we ran into.”
Similar to the juniors, freshman Jonathan Mazor-Hoofien said his class faced challenges in designing the float.
“We’ve had a lot of setbacks and we’ve had to redo a bunch of stuff,” Mazor-Hoofien said. “But I think overall, we’re getting it done. At least we’re not giving up.”
According to freshman Tessa Berney, float building has been a great way to bond with her class.
“I feel like I’ve definitely gotten closer to a lot of different people that I didn’t know before,” Berney said. “Overall, it’s just been a very good experience. My favorite part is either the painting or just making progress so far.”
Berney said she is excited to see a week of hard work finally shine at tomorrow’s rally.
“I’m looking forward to seeing everyone else’s floats done,” Berney said. “They’ve made great progress and I’ve got to applaud them because they’ve done a great job.”
