The first annual Canstruction Madison event was a success just a few months before Middleton's Good Neighbor Festival Parade. The nonprofit organization that ran the event, Middleton Outreach Ministry (MOM), asked me to build a canstruction for their float in the parade. Of course I said yes!

A mental list of design requirements came to mind: large, low-resolution, possibly an optical illusion, surprising or delighting, and looks the same on both sides of the street. From those goals this design was born.

It was large at 12 feet long and almost 6 feet tall.

The illusion was the change from blue skies to colorful sunset from the perspective of someone watching the parade. This was achieved by constructing a zigzag pattern of panels that use the panels facing more forward to show one image and the panels facing more backward to show a different image.

This effect was inspired by the lenticular printing technique used to print two alternate images onto one material. The image you see depends on the angle at which you're viewing the material.

For our other Canstruction installments, we built the structure initially in the shop but tore it down and rebuilt it in the venue on the day of the event. This installment would be different. A benefit of building a structure to be road-ready was that it could be built once, anywhere!

We started with a strong wood foundation that could bear the weight and the flex of the supports that would soon go up. We had to keep in mind that the drive to get to the parade would take us on windy country roads and busy highways. If we could make it to the start of the parade, we were in good shape.

The supports were built as four square columns made of plywood attached to the foundation.

There is not enough clear tape in the world that would have made us comfortable driving the structure at highway speeds. We decided to use a strong mesh material to tightly cover the cans and keep them against the wood. Fortunately you couldn't see the mesh from far away.

Panel by panel, it started to come together. We decided not to build the green hills until we got to the parade.

A few warm summer nights later and the structure was ready for the long haul.

We added wood reinforcements around the top of the cans to keep it all together on the way to the parade.

Even though it was as secure as it could have been, we took it slow. We got some funny looks along the way.

The rest of the structure came together once we made it to the parade site. We added the final touches and signage, and duct-taped the wood reinforcements at the top.

The two-mile parade went off without a hitch. Afterward, the awesome volunteers with MOM dove in and handled the massive teardown operation.

The structure was awarded Best Parade Float.

The volunteers took the canned food with them to the food pantry, and the wood and other materials were repurposed.