In December 2024, Reiman Gardens put on its fifth annual Winter Wonderscape walk-through experience in Ames. The event included over 190,000 lights on display, as well as holiday decor and various activities to create festivity in Ames. It was a huge success for Reiman and the entire community, with attendees of all ages coming from all over the city.

If you got the chance to experience the Winter Wonderscape yourself, you may have noticed the flashing panel light display on the ground as one of the exhibits throughout the night. The display included various mesmerizing images and colorful radiance across 25 panels of LED-powered light bulbs.

The panel display was created by a team of Iowa State senior engineering students and was headed up by Reiman Gardens’ entomology director, Nathan Brockman.

“It’s like a giant 8-bit TV screen is lying on the ground,” Brockman said. “They were working on it all the way up to even the day after they walked across the stage [for graduation]… modifying and tweaking… because it took us time to build those panels and for them to do the wiring.” 

The team of students invested hours on end for two whole semesters to create the best possible effects for the Winter Wonderscape experience.

“The show it put on actually improved as the month went on,” Brockman said.

By the end, it had a really fun display of five different scenes including the Iowa State logo, the Jack Trice Stadium logo, snowmen, sweeping rainbow patterns, Santa hats and a variety of festive images.

The engineering students take no rest. Brockman has already begun assembling the next group of students for their help towards continued revisions and to pick up on elements the other group couldn’t finish. They plan on including an element of touch where guests can interact with the exhibit to make it do different things, along with many other modifications to continue advancing the display.

Keep your eye out for future events at Reiman Gardens, including the “Spirits in the Garden” event coming up next October. You might get the chance to see what phenomenon Iowa State’s engineering students decide to do next with the illuminating panels.



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