Subgroups of CTE students, specifically in the classes Sports and Entertainment Marketing, Career Prep, Fashion Design, and others, collaborated to build a float with the theme “toys come to life” for the Plano Lions’ annual christmas parade. Not only was this past year the Career and Technology Education department’s first time winning an award for their parade float, but it was their first year to participate at all.

Assigned as their semester exam projects, the students were challenged to create something that would impact not only their school population, but the surrounding community.

“He [Mr. Duncan] told us about doing a float and gave us the idea but then helped us think about what to put on it,” senior Kristina Saldivar said.

Brainstorming several elements that would eventually constitute the theme “toys come to life,” the teams of students considered what would strike a chord with young children as well as their parents, going after the goal of making an impact on as many people as possible.

The project would end up being a largely collaborative effort across multiple groups of students that each took on one element of the float. Senior Brandon Stanton and senior Reece Field decided on Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots to be the central structure. They then had to discern the best way to incorporate the iconic figures.

I was thinking about just going out and buying costumes, and Brandon was like, ‘why don’t we just make something?’ and then we just searched up Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots,” Field said.

The process took place from the end of the first grading period all the way to the morning of the parade, meeting several small obstacles along the way.

“We accepted the project early on, thinking it was going to be easy, but as time went on it took al ot longer than we thought it and it was more stressful,” Fields said.

Although it seemed to be a big commitment, the three agreed that the large majority of work was done during class time. As for Sports and Entertainment Marketing as a course, it takes on a project-based curriculum, with students learning lots about working in groups.

“The class was completely different from what we expected, but it was a blast to be in and taught us how to manage our time and how to ‘Create Awesomeness,’” Fields said.

While the course is an unconventional one, the students admit that it’s not a great choice for someone with a busy schedule.

“The fact that we never took an actual test was awesome. It did create a lot of stress in my schedule but overall, the class was fun and exciting,” Stanton said.

On the day of the parade, all participants arrived early and made last-minute adjustments that were necessary. From 9 to 11 am, the float traveled the length of parade catching the eyes of not only children, but all the adults as well, recognizing an old icon. The Plano Lions, a humanitarian district club that puts on the parade every year, awarded the CTE department “Best Overall Float.” However, the highlight for these three students in particular was the experience they had interacting with the community.

“It was definitely worth it,” Fields said “even though things went wrong we still had so much fun. Seeing the older and younger generations smile due to something we created was amazing.”