Giant Honda robot to provide Pasadena with shock and awe
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It must have seemed like a great idea at the time: “I know, let’s celebrate the 120th Rose Parade with a big scary robot, only we’ll cover the surface of this giant 49-foot behemoth with super fine ground white rice, then deck the float with carnations and chrysanthemums, and grind it up later for mulch.”
That might have been how the conversation at Honda went when planning for the Jan. 1 parade. Honda is one of the parade’s longest-running sponsors and, this year, the company’s float will evolve from a stage where the opening ceremony takes place into an animated replica of Honda’s ASIMO robot (it stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, but Isaac Asimov would have been proud). Only 12 times as big. And wearing a hat.
Which is a bizarre way of celebrating Honda’s 50th anniversary of operating in the USA, but each to his own.