Picky's So Excited!

^^ to the point that this was almost the cache title

I've loved virtuals since I started caching and this is the first virtual I've been allowed to place, as I started after virtuals had been restricted from general creation. 

End of the page writeup has the BACKSTORY as to how this site/subject was chosen.

STEAMing Reston Public Art:

South Lakes High School in Reston, just down South Lakes Drive from Lake Thoreau, has a STEAM Team based out of the art department, the SLHS STEAM Team Public Art Club. For more than ten years now, that group of students - led by teacher and artist Marco Rando*** - has been designing and installing site-specific sculptures on the drain/spillway platform at Lake Thoreau in cooperation with Public Art Reston and the Reston Association and sometimes additional organizations.
 

HISTORY:

The sculpture idea - and site - were initially proposed to Reston back in 2012 by Lake Thoreau neighbor James Pan, who felt the spillway structure near his home could use some visual improvement.

The sad spillway structure between installations.
It looked even drearier back in 2012.

James Pan contacted the aforementioned Reston groups and also suggested getting SLHS students involved.

The first spillway installation was created during the 2013-14 school year and installed in May of 2014. It only stayed up through the summer. It was so well received in the community that creating these installations has become an annual partnership between the school and the community. Some of the students have enjoyed their participation on the STEAM Team and these installations so much that they've been involved with the Lake Thoreau creations over multiple years.
 

PROCESS:

Under Marco Rando's guidance, the STEAM Team students come up with new designs every year. They build small models of what they have in mind, planning materials and colors that will help them express their themes.

Once they've prepped their ideas, each year's STEAM Team presents ten designs to Public Art Reston.  PAR considers the presentations and models and indicate their three top choices. The students then vote among themselves to decide which sculpture to create that year.  The students also interface with Reston Association (RA)'s Design Review Board (DRB) for approval of the final design.

The sculptures are built at the school by the STEAM Team during that school year. They work with professional architects and engineers for structural integrity. The installations will need to hold up in NoVA's brutally hot, often extremely wet summer weather, occasional snow/ice, and occasional strong winds. At the end of the school year or over the summer, that year's new sculpture is transported from the school to the lake - just a few blocks away - and installed on Lake Thoreau's spillway platform with the help of a construction crew from Reston Association.

By working on these projects, the students learn the process of creating public art start to finish. They learn or improve collaborative skills, public speaking, communication with community groups, budgeting and planning, sometimes 3d computer modeling, and art and construction techniques and the use of shop tools.

Previous years' sculpture installations have been inspired by the pandemic; by environmental concerns; by social issues; by Reston itself.

So - STEAM along South Lakes Drive, find yourself a legal place to park nearby (NOT on SL Drive itself), and come on by to see this year's SLHS STEAM Team sculpture installation!

See links for additional details of the SLHS STEAM Team's overall process and about their current and previous years' efforts. There are video as well as written references.

TO GET CREDIT FOR THIS VIRTUAL:

Peruse this page and some of the history of the STEAM Team sculptures on Lake Thoreau in Reston. 

Visit the main site to take your photo and gather certain info (specified below).  Some information may be available on the STEAM info sign by the path near the sculpture.  That sign is sometimes a bit behind, so don't count on that being your only source.

You will need to post your photo with your log and also need to send some things to the CO (preferably via GC PM). Don't claim a find until you've done all of the requirements.  Other than the installation name, try not to post the PMed/emailed items in your log.

REQUIRED IN MESSAGE(S) TO CO 
within a day or so of posting a Found; can be later if you're doing a Write Note:

1a) the lake installation's name
*and*
b) its subject matter/theme
Use the current sculpture if there is one.  If the platform is EMPTY during your visit or if a sculpture is only partially there (is being installed or deinstalled), you can use the most recent OR next sculpture (the next one may not have been announced yet).
AND
2) what the sculpture in 1) was/is/will be made of
* The on-site sign often has this; if not, check the links.
* You don't have to list EVERY material, as some of the installations have long lists; just enough to make it clear that you learned about it
** only mention the materials in your log if it's part of a commentary/comparison **
AND
3)  What does it say on the bench closest to the slope going up to the shopping center?
** do not put this into your log **

REQUIRED IN/WITH YOUR LOG (and/or additional Write Notes), *not* in the PM/email to the CO:
1) Post a photo of yourself/your group on site near the STEAM platform on Lake Thoreau, showing any/all of the current sculpture installation if there is one or showing that it's incomplete or absent.  

* You don't have to show your face(s).
* Your photo can be taken along the path or you can be on the water (or in the water, if/when Reston Association allows swimming there).
* If you're there as a group, it's OK to post the same photo in each log - or to post it once in one log and note with the one photo who the other cachers are AND to have the other cachers refer to your log for the photo.
* If you don't want to claim the virtual yet, post a Write Note with the required photo and do a Found after you've completed the rest.

**IMPORTANT: Photos taken from a vehicle on the road do not count for a Found, although they are welcome in your logs.**  
** If you have a physical disability or other serious situation that precludes you from getting down to the path/on the water to see the sculpture up close, PM/email the CO to explain privately and an exception will be considered. **

**ENCOURAGED IN YOUR LOG but can't require per Virtual rules, your responses to any/all of these**:
2) Note something about any of these STEAM Team installations (current, previous, or upcoming if announced) that you appreciated / found particularly interesting / were surprised by and why (could be the materials, look, colors, backstory, etc.).  For example, was there one that you would have thought represented something entirely different if you hadn't read about it?  Was there one that reminded you of other art or music?

3) If you had seen any of the installations before this virtual, did you know what they were / why they were there / why they changed?  Did you feel differently about them once you learned they were designed and built by students?  Photos of previous installations are welcome in your logs.

4) Which of the Thoreau installations looked like they were especially fun or difficult to build, balance, tether in place? 

5) Was there a particular one you would have enjoyed helping with?

6) If you've ever personally been involved with creating public art or an art/sculpture installation on water, we'd love to read about that.

7) Recommendations for any other geocaches involving public art?  Please include the GC# or a link if you can.

**ENCOURAGED IF YOU HAVE THE TIME BUT OPTIONAL**
as it requires driving elsewhere and parking there is tricky and isn't always free:

Visit the STEAM students' Vidustria installation at Reston Town Center
and
* post photos of yourself with both long sides of that one to your log
* what do you think of "Vidustria" compared to the lake installation(s)? (think look, feel, scale, colors, static vs. dynamic, setting, proximity, etc.)

See additional waypoint and parking info for details.  

"Vidustria" is visible from Reston Parkway as well as (though not as well) from RTC's internal road - so if you can't find reasonable parking, don't have time to park, or aren't physically up for the park-and-walk you can also drive by to take a look.

An on-site selfie with "Vidustria" is strongly preferred if you're going over there, but a drive-by selife with it is OK if you can find a safe way to get the picture.  Along Reston Parkway, someone else would have to be driving; there isn't a shoulder.

SEE TABLE for info on each year's installations; below that is the parking information.

SLHS STEAM Team installations on Lake Thoreau thus far:

Date ranges shown are approximately when the installations are/were on the lake.
Each would have been designed in the previous school year.
For example, the team considers "Pyramid" to be its 2014 sculpture installation.

About "Vidustria", the STEAM Team's installation at RTC:

More about the STEAM Team:

PARKING for the required portion at Lake Thoreau:

Curbside along Ridge Heights Road or at South Lakes Shopping Center. The latter has places you can buy food/drinks (some of which have restrooms you can use) and a gas station. Bus stops are around the area. It's a short walk on a paved path from parking to the area near the sign, but there's a bit of a downhill from either parking option. There are curb cuts by the shopping center; there may be one at the corner of Ridge Heights and South Lakes Drive (Google Maps has some very old street views of that segment) but farther up Ridge Heights you have to jump a guardrail to get to the path.

D3 is for your time and effort. This is more than a drive-by since you have to walk a bit, find a sign that is sometimes obscured, and do more than just take a photo.
T2 because of the somewhat steep slopes at either end of the path by the lake (it's flat closest to the sculpture) and the short walk - although it should be doable by wheelchair unless it's very slick out, assuming you find a curb cut to the path.

IMPORTANT:  <NO-GO> The spillway structure itself is off-limits unless you are a part of the official installation/de-installation team or part of the RA lake-maintenance crew, so do not attempt to get on the spillway structure. </NO-GO>

PARKING for the OPTIONAL WAYPOINT at Reston Town Center:

Parking in RTC garages and along RTC streets is generally *paid* but can be validated in some places. RTC may have free parking evenings/some weekend hours.  When you get on-site, there are signs explaining their parking rules.  Their many parking options are beyond the scope of this writeup.

**IMPORTANT:  If you park in a nearby shopping center and walk over to RTC, the parking folks at the shopping center are likely to ticket you before you get back.  They - unfortunately for us - watch for this.  And RTC has been known to boot vehicles that break their parking rules. **

BACKSTORY as to how my virtual ended up with this subject:

Grew up in Reston. Went away for college; came back and have been in and around the area ever since. Live a little outside Reston now (though not far) and have since the late '90s.

Initially wanted to do a "Selfie with a People Mover at IAD" virtual since I've always loved Dulles' people movers, but geo-anything at airports is frowned upon these days *plus* now the airport is talking about shutting those people movers down :( Didn't want to place and immediately lose a precious virtual, so that sadly was a no-go.

Having spent many an hour on Lake Anne and/or at the plaza there over the years, the Van Gogh Bridge at Lake Anne Plaza was another - and obvious - idea - but everyone goes there already and the plaza already has a virtual (on a more contemporary topic). Would be nice to spread out the virtuals a bit and maybe if I get *another* virtual someday I'll do the bridge.

So I asked my kids, who were in or done with college but had grown up here and had gone to South Lakes High School, for ideas: what, in the Reston/Herndon area, did they think I should highlight that people might not know about on their own? And one suggested these sculptures.  

Excellent idea. We've always looked forward to seeing what the SLHS STEAM students come up with.  Our kids hadn't been on the team themselves but they'd had friends and classmates who were involved with some of the early installations.

Reached out to Marco Rando, the SLHS teacher whose program it is and whose STEAM students create the sculptures; he wasn't familiar with geocaching but was happy to have more people find out about the sculptures and the program. He reached out to someone at Reston Arts who he works with on the program; she didn't object. 

And here we are.

*** The Rando family lived down the street from mine during the '80s.  Our parents kind of knew one another back then but we didn't really.

Background and "sad spillway" photos on cache page are CO's own.

So cache finders understand the Virtual Rewards 4.0 project:

Virtual Rewards 4.0 - 2024-2025

This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between January 17, 2024 and January 17, 2025. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 4.0 on the Geocaching Blog.