The Project for Beam this year was called the Macro-Micro Domes. What we did was build five geodesic domes of different sizes. Then we decorated 4 of them to look like geodesic viruses: Hepatitis C, Herpes, the Rhino Virus, and HIV. The fifth dome, which is the biggest, was the Beam Virus, which we, the Beam Campers, designed.

The Rhino Virus was the dome we started decorating first. We decorated it by attaching triangular panels to each triangle, some clear, some green. We drilled holes in each panel in the places we needed holes in. In the clear panels, we poked strands of ‘Flagellae’ through the holes. On the green panels, the holes were arranged so that for every five green panels, there was a star shape. We poked blue lights through those holes.

Next was HIV. We decorated it by attaching the panels and spraying it with spray foam. Then we glued red fabric to each triangle. The color had changed, but we still had the spray foam texture. Then we put “mushrooms” we had made, complete with latex and pipe cleaners, to the dome with giant staples. None of us campers were allowed to attach the mushrooms; it was ‘too dangerous.

The Hepatitis C dome was the smallest one. This time, we didn’t attach any panels; we attached yellow fabric with noodles sticking out of it. But how did the noodles get there? The campers wove them onto the fabric. They got the noodles from paper cutouts. We pinned them onto the fabric, then cut out around the edges.

Then Herpes. We silk-screened the designs onto the fabric, then attached that onto the dome. Again, we didn’t use any panels. There were still open triangles, so we attached green fabric to those open triangles.

Last but not least was the Beam Virus. Since we had six “waves” [roving, working groups], and there were six pentagons to a dome, each wave got an assignment. One wave made face parts, one wave made “Patterns in Nature,” et cetera. Then we attached triangles with facial parts, patterns in nature, et cetera, to the dome. Inside the dome, there are pictures of parts of our bodies, only taken with microscope cameras.

Lucas, Proton