Welcome to the Astronomy portion of the Kansas STEM Website. Here you will find information about the Kansas STEM Astronomy Project including forms and other materials.

State Fair Forms (2023):

• Astronomy Exhibit Form  (PDF)
• Astronomy Exhibit Score Sheet (PDF)
• STEM Educational Display, Notebook, and Poster Score Sheet (PDF) ****
• STEM State Fair Video Showcase Release (PDF)
• State Fair Rules (External Link)

**** Posters, Display Boards, & Notebooks, No additional exhibit information is required; no manila envelope is needed for these exhibits.  All other exhibits need the additional information included in a manila envelope. All other exhibits need the additional information included in a manila envelope. Displays, notebooks and posters have been combined into one score sheet for all divisions.

Documents in PDF format can be opened using a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat Reader which can be obtained from:  https://get.adobe.com/reader/

If using the Firefox web browser, PDF’s may not have fallible fields present, please either save the file or open in a different browser.

Resources:

For those looking for telescope ideas I’d start with this site, https://theselfsufficientliving.com/diy-telescope-build/ it has some good designs. Some are simplistic designs, and some, like the Dobsonian’s, can get pretty involved. You should build at a level you feel comfortable with.

A cool design that can be done rather inexpensively is detailed here:  https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/make-a-small-refractor-telescope/ essentially it walks you through building a refractor telescope and provides various alternatives for the design, for example using an old binocular objective lens. This is a great idea for someone’s third or forth year in astronomy as they move beyond understanding the concepts to applying them.

Lastly, this is a cool design, if you do 3D printing. It’s somewhat advanced (I’d say its a tad bit easier than a Dobsonian depending on your 3D printing experience). The article details how a photographer 3D printed most of a telescope (the optics aren’t 3D printed). https://petapixel.com/2022/07/28/photographer-creates-diy-telescope-to-snap-incredible-photos-of-the-moon/ The instructions to build it are at the end of the article. If you have experience with 3D printing, take a look.