The boys and girls decorated their maypole - not as they saw fit and in a relaxed manner, but with a formula they created themselves.
Wolfratshausen – It’s about tradition and costume. It's about the white and blue Bavarian flag and a little bit about the cozy communal beer. And by the way, it's about hypotenuses and highly complex formulas in a calculation program: The Wolfratshausen May boys and girls painted their tree - an important moment not only for those in the know. Because the 32-meter span is intended to decorate the old rafting area for several years, the Kolping family attaches great importance to ensuring that nothing disturbs the perfect white and blue Bavarian look. “It should look like something,” says senior boy Marinus Vogl. “That’s why we don’t make it so easy for ourselves.” Sure: you could simply paint upright diamonds. However, the Kolping family has planned more: a slanted, ornate diamond pattern. Basically the Bavarian flag around the tree.
With AI, calculation formulas and manual work: Maypole gets hundreds of Bavaria diamonds
How complicated can painting diamonds be? Christian Gerardy created a Power Point presentation to answer this question. This should also help future generations of May Day celebrations to brush the pattern, which is coordinated with gentle transitions, onto their trunks. A young colleague smiles as Gerardy reaches out: The 442 small diamonds on the tree should correspond exactly to the angle of inclination of the diamonds in the Bayern logo. The 28-year-old talks about angles, hypotenuses, offsets and the calculation program he designed on his laptop. Gerardy also thinks about details that some May boys don't necessarily understand straight away. Kolping practices maypole painting 4.0 on Bahnhofstrasse – laptop and lederhosen are in harmony.
Boys and girls paint their maypole - the program calculated 448 diamonds
The complex calculation work serves a very useful purpose: the small diamonds should meander around the tree in perfect harmony. An unclean transition would spoil the entire piece of jewelry. And at a height that passers-by could see for years. From a tree height of two meters to around four meters above the ground, the all-round diamond shape is drawn on the wood. “You can see that for years. “It has to be right,” explains Valentin Allgeyer. “The closer to the ground, the cleaner we have to work.” He makes notes on the tree with a pencil.
Maypole is decorated: Many young people take part in the Wolfratshauser May tradition.
Further up the trunk the decoration becomes easier: an alternating band of wide blue and white stripes. “It’s easier to paint – and it’s so high, you can’t really see it from the ground,” says Kolping-Oberbursch Vogl. Nevertheless, the maypole painters work meticulously. Xaver Kieslinger and Thomas Kunz check the stretched ropes, nails and pencil notes. They will serve as orientation later. An observer gives them a tip: “If the stripes are too small, the tree will look like it's wearing a sweater with vertical stripes” – i.e. not a very flattering shape.
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The two ribbons are about ten centimeters apart. “It fits,” is the conclusion. In the background, folk music plays from a loudspeaker. The guys changed the playlist: just before, heavy metal had been blaring from the box. There isn't much blue color on the tree at this point. Thomas Kunz explains calmly: “Once it's running, it's going fast.”