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

State Fair Forms (2025):

• Astronomy Exhibit Form  (PDF)
• Astronomy Exhibit Score Sheet (PDF)
• ET Educational Display, Notebook, and Poster Score Sheet (PDF) ****
• ET 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.

This is a cool design, if you are into 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.

For those interested expanding their view beyond what visual telescopes can see you may want to consider a radio telescope. https://www.scienceinschool.org/article/2012/telescope-2/ These telescopes typically aren’t powerful enough to explore deep space, but you can explore the sun, the moon, and even things happening on planet Earth. There are many different articles on the internet about building radio telescopes. You can use these resources in building a radio telescope or if you’ve already done that, an educational exhibit.