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Andrew Hunt and his crew from Blue Ridge Community Church in Forest, VA brings us this great alternative to the pit ball concept.
They bought a bunch of half-ball styrofoam balls online. This kept them from having to cut each one in half. (You can easily get them at your local craft store or save money online.)
Andrew had already drawn them up in Sketchup so they knew the spacing before starting. They marked off the spacing on some 4×16 panels and used a chalk line using Irwin Dust-Off chalk to make the grid. They applied Liquid Nails to the back of each piece of styrofoam and centered each piece at the cross hairs of chalk. Once they were all applied, they used our eyes to make small alignment tweaks. Then they dusted off the chalk. They let them sit overnight and hung them the following day.
The 4x16s are recognizable as they’ve used them for several other designs in the past. They like to recycle as much as they can. They painted them black and used them as a structure for the styrofoam.
Cool idea: Imagine projection on these using smaller balls. Cool LED wall alternative.
I write and speak about the creative process – especially for churches. Call me a resource for the church creative wanting to make their ministry better.
4×6 panels of what?
So what size were the balls?
i think they are just white ping pong balls.
I like this, simple and clean. Good job!
Like.!!!
What kind of lights are used here?
I like the look; would like to hear more about how it’s lit. The pattern looks like it’s one light, but the spill and some photos look like it’s 3 lights per panel.
Are those LED Pars lighting up the panels? Great set idea!!!!
To provide a little more detail:
• The panels are foam insulation board available at Lowes/HD etc. They come in 4×8 sheets and they are glued together in the middle. We also applied 1/2″ drywall trim to the edges to create a nice clean edge to the panels.
• The diameter of each half ball was 1.5″, they are half styrofoam balls.
• 1 ETC Selador Paletta per panel, toplit. The movers are High End Studio Beams.
Hope that helps!
Andrew
Correction, 3″ half balls.
Which size were your Palettas? I was researching them and found they come in 11″, 22″, 42″ & 63″?
Awesome design! I would like to do something similar for my youth group building. What kind of light fixtures are being used?
Hi Mike,
ETC Selador Paletta per panel, toplit. The movers are High End Studio Beams.
Drew
can yo u post a picture of what it looks like when not lit
Hello. Incredible. Site you bought the styrofoam balls??? PLEASE & THANK YOU!
Looks Great! I would also like to know the web site you used to purchase the half balls. Not having much luck finding them.
Thanks,
Ryan
I’m a beginner stage designer for our church plant. we currently have a large theater stage at a college. We have an upcoming event and like this design. If we build the same height, what type LEDs would you recommend using? Par cans, bars, or panels? we can buy them for the event and reuse them often We have DMX light board already and a few par 38 LED’s. ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED.
In my opinion you could use almost any professional or semi-professional LED fixture to light it. A few things I would be concerned with are:
1. Brightness of the fixture – the brighter the better
2. How narrow the beam is (you should be able to calculate this for most fixtures)
3. Amount of light hitting the design from other sources…i.e. downstage frontlight washing out the balls, competing with your LEDs.
Sorry it took me so long!
http://www.plasteelcorp.com is where I purchased them.
I believe these were the actual product:
http://www.plasteelcorp.com/foamshapes/smoothfoam_styrofoam/10065.html
There are 256 balls per panel, 1536 total.
Hello Andrew,
I am al little confused, styrofoam balls or smoothfoam balls?
you said you used styrofoam but the link you shared is for smoothfoam,
Yes, that’s correct. It is smoothfoam.
Thanks, for your fast response…
That is per 4 x8 panel or 4 x 16 panel?
Can someone email me a set of the plans (if available)?
jeffcox800@yahoo.com
Thanks!
We’re doing this next week. Is there a copy of the Sketchup plans we can use? Thanks so much for sharing!
Here’s a public link to download the Sketchup file:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/864156/%22Big%20Baller%22%20Stage%20Design.skp
Enjoy! And be sure to post photos of your recreation!! I’d love to see em.
Awesome, thanks! I’ll link you some pics after we’re done.
11″
Did you paint the panels black? If so what kind of paint did you use? Do you remember what kind of cement you used to put the two panels together?
Hi Jordan,
Gorilla Glue for the panels, Liquid Nails for the styrofoam. Yes, we painted them black. Any flat black paint will work for ya.
where did you guys get the panels from?
We bought ours from Lowes!
yup, Lowes, HD, any big box hardware store should have them.
This is what you’re looking for:
http://low.es/TbLEMa
or something similar
Love the clean lines of this design. It adds a level of sophistication to the environment without being distracting. Great job Blue Ridge Community Church!
Thank you! :)
Hello Andrew !!!
We just took this great desing idea and we will use it to remodel our church in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico
Actually, we started today !!!
Thanks for your help, God bless you !!
Awesome Paco! I hope it has turned out well for you guys. :)
Hei Andrew! Your stage looks awesome!
The Sketchupfile u added here, it dont have the elements/walls, or, I dont get them when I download the file. Can you send me a sketchup file of the stage?
Thanks mate, God bless!
Hey Andrew,
I wanted to know what the distance you had between each ball, but especially the distance around the edges so we can keep the same distance from one board to the other.
Thanks,
Mike
Hey Mike! Andrew sent us the google sketchup drawing so we could perfectly line up the balls. Our panels had to be to 4′ x 12′ so we modified the plans slightly, but it was the easiest way to make sure everything looked great.
I downloaded the sketchup file, but when I opened it none of the walls or balls where there.
Here’s a dropbox link to the one i modified for our panels. Use measuring tape from end to end, marking it on all 4 sides. Then just use a dark colored chalkline and go down both ways so you have your “crosshairs” for where each ball goes.
I say “dark” because we used pink chalkline and couldn’t get it all off after we were done. You can’t really see the lines, unless you’re close to the panels, but still, learn from our mistake :)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/99s0yutbnypcfcl/Big%20Baller.jpg
This dropbox seems to be empty! Is it possible for you to email me the plans?
bre.stevenson@hotmail.com
Thanks so much!
Andrew – Sorry I never followed up with a pic of how it turned out.
Here’s a link to a video of how the panels look in our sanctuary. They turned out AWESOME, so thank you! And yes, we did do FF5′s “Wobble” as a part of our worship service, but only because I try to keep things fresh and the congregation on their toes :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5NqxJbRRLk
You could use black Choroplast which runs about $11 per 4×8 sheet and come out cheaper than the Lowes panels and then painting.
Where can you buy this?
I usually get them from a local wholesale sign company where I live in SC. You should be able to find somewhere online.
Just as a reference I usually pay around $12 per sheet of black if I get 10 – 20. Of course price drops with larger orders.
This is brilliant! Thanks everyone for the supply details, too. I’ll be building some panels shortly for our stage! :)
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Hey Andrew, I know its been awhile cense you posted this stage design, but I was wondering if you could let me know how much space you put in between each of the balls? Thanks so much.