For the previous few months, a gaggle of engineering college students from San Jose State College has been engaged on a venture that’s certain to land them on the high of Santa’s “good” listing. As an alternative of constructing the following AI platform, they’ve been attempting to carry smiles to the faces of youngsters and adults by making penguins fly for Christmas within the Park.
“Penguin Flight Faculty” was one of many extra whimsical shows at San Jose’s beloved vacation custom at Plaza de Cesar Chavez yearly, a carousel with stuffed penguin toys floating down on little canvas parachutes. However time took its toll on the exhibit, and it was pulled from the show the previous few years in hopes that it may very well be repaired.
The San Jose State crew — seniors Derek Do, Cesar Jair Romero Callejas, Daniel Jimenez Hernandez, Mark Bennett and Zachary McGee — labored with Christmas within the Park Program Supervisor Keith Peffer to do greater than that. They changed the previous plush penguins with new figures made out of fiberglass that may flap their wings as they descend.
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San Jose State College engineering senior Derek Do sits behind an animatronic penguin on the Penguin Flight Faculty show, a basic Christmas within the Park show, within the Christmas within the Park workshop for his or her Senior Design Class in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 29, 2025. They’ve been engaged on it for the reason that starting of the 12 months. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Space Information Group)
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San Jose State College engineering senior Derek Do sits behind an animatronic penguin on the Penguin Flight Faculty show, a basic Christmas within the Park show, within the Christmas within the Park workshop for his or her Senior Design Class in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 29, 2025. They’ve been engaged on it for the reason that starting of the 12 months. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Space Information Group)
Peffer mentioned the design college students had to determine find out how to make the animatronic penguins work and constructed them from scratch, ordering components on-line and making others utilizing a 3D printer. In addition they needed to determine in upkeep and sustainability, to ensure the show lasts so long as potential.
“They took be aware of all these issues and type of dove into it,” Peffer mentioned. “It’s actually neat to see the completely different iterations and problem-solving these guys have been doing, determining what works and what’s going to trigger issues.”
It’s been so successful that Peffer mentioned talks have already began on collaborating with San Jose State on a complete new show for subsequent 12 months, working not solely with the engineering and robotics college students but additionally with advertising and marketing and design. “This might be an all-encompassing show working with a number of departments on the faculty,” Peffer mentioned. “We foresee this being an even bigger factor that we are able to develop.”
Christmas within the Park Govt Director Ted Lopez mentioned the collaboration with San Jose State isn’t the one one the nonprofit has lined up. It lately agreed on a five-year sponsorship with Broadway San Jose and likewise has a brand new partnership with ArtHouse Studio that can function scholar art work in a digital show all through the run. Lopez says he additionally desires to begin new team-building initiatives like candlemaking and creating kids’s toys out of wooden scraps.
You may try the San Jose State scholar’s efforts quickly as the vacation show will begin being put in at Plaza de Cesar Chavez this week to have the whole lot prepared in time for the opening and tree-lighting ceremony on Friday, Nov. 28.
Tickets are also on sale for Blinky’s Drive Via Gentle Present on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, which opens Nov. 21. Get extra info at www.christmasinthepark.com.
RUNNING START: When lots of us are sleeping in Sunday morning, Amanda Rawson can be working the streets of the Large Apple within the New York Marathon. “I’m nonetheless stunned with myself that I’m going to do that massive factor in one of the vital well-known cities on the planet,” mentioned Rawson, a companion and venture supervisor for the San Jose-based Artwork Builds Group.
Rawson says she was by no means a lot of a runner however began working throughout COVID. She joined working golf equipment like Arete Girls’s Run Membership, Renegade Working, Hella Bay Run Membership and Oh Run Membership. However she actually hit her stride with the Good Time Bar Run Membership, which relies on the downtown San Jose wine bar on Fountain Alley.
She began signing up for races and setting some new targets for herself, together with working within the New York Metropolis Marathon by the point she was 40. That didn’t occur, however Rawson has her likelihood now at 41.
Stepping into the marathon could be very aggressive, and Rawson received her likelihood to run by partnering with an NYC-based nonprofit Ali Forney Middle, which works to maintain LGBTQ youth from homelessness and supplies job readiness and healthcare assist for them. Rawson mentioned she reached out to them due to the work they do and feels privileged to fundraise for them.
HONOR ROLL: Congratulations to Barbara and Invoice Heil, who had been honored final Wednesday because the recipients of the President’s Award from Bellarmine Faculty Prep. Along with supporting the San Jose boys Jesuit highschool, the couple additionally has been very supportive of the Tech Interactive and are sponsoring an growth of the Tech Problem engineering occasion to the Bay Space and Kenya.
The award they acquired is designed and produced annually by college students in Bellarmine’s Maker Lab, beneath the course of school member David Dutton. The scholars who made this 12 months’s award had been Diego Vasquez and brothers Dev Thakkar and Jai Thakkar.
COUNTRY CHRISTMAS: Now that we’ve damaged the seal on Christmas, it’s a superb time to say that tickets are promoting quick for Valle Monte League’s annual Christmas Tree Class occasion. This 12 months’s theme is “Boots & Bling, A Nation Christmas,” and there’s a champagne brunch and a dinner gala set for Dec. 5 on the Santa Clara Conference Middle.
Along with a style present (plus a on line casino night time and line dancing on the dinner), the large spotlight annually are the elaborately adorned designer timber, that are raffled off at every occasion, with proceeds benefitting Caminar’s Household & Youngsters Providers and Hearts & Minds Exercise Middle. Go to www.vallemonte.org for extra info and tickets.
