The Harmonograph at the 2011 Great New York State Fair

The most notable new addition for 2011 was a 7' diameter Earth balloon which I suspended over my exhibit space.  I had to get permission from The Fair for this new display piece and I was restricted to a total weight of ten pounds - which I barely met.  The vinyl balloon has a 2 RPM spinner moter which was powered by one "D" battery which lasted the whole 12 days of The Fair.

I also added some PAR (parabolic aluminum reflector) can lights to illuminate the balloon and a pair of fancy edge lit color-changing LED illuminated  "Men" and "Women" signs to indicate the bathroom entrances behind my exhibit. I did this so I wouldn't have to spend so much time telling people where the bathrooms are - the new signs didn't help...

I also added an Earth map mural to the side wall, to add a splach of color; I think next year I would like to get a cool HST (Hubble Space Telescope) mural for the wall.

The only other big change to the exhibit was to change out of the rare meteorite display on the Orrery of Science table (the magnifying lamp used to view the smaller specimens gave me fits last year) for a radioactive specimen display which was very well received, after some concerns from The Fair people.  The only issue I had with it was with the amplifier for the Gieger counter which kept making an annoying buzzing noise.