not a department per see, but a budget, I have alot of whacky ideas that I like to try with out affecting my shows budget.

We're calling it a Department, but it's going to be myself and one other guy with a corner in our storage space for now.. But with my background in all things production and both of our knowledge in building things from nothing(plus, he's an electronics whiz), I'm comfortable calling it a legitimate department. And we're looking at a few thousand for a budget..

I am an R&D department without a haunt currently, does that count?

Imagine This.

A testing ground for new haunt things running every night, all year long, through all weather conditions, centrally located in the USA.
Right HERE it is! The Ravens Grin Inn, in Mount Carroll, Illinois.
I will have people coming here to see the house, do the house tour on some really bad weather nights, maybe they like the uncrowded situation? (Maybe they are here for the ghostly potential?) This is a haunted, haunted house (not stuttering)
I am very excited about a new , big, potentially very scary pnuematic display I have started.
Instead of buiding a roof and an addition on the side of the place to house this item I instead raised some portable roofing I have on steel casters. The pnuematic is bolted to a stand that was once a furnace heat exchanger lid from a 1955 monsterous furnace. It's a 48inch round piece of 2 inch thick cast iron. I have a 2" galvenised pipe mounted straight up from this lid, it doesn't shake or bend.
The cylinder will propell or push the likeness item on the end of the swing arm to effect more travel for it, gravity and steep angling of the bearing plate will return it to the start position.
A solid bumper with some rubber pads will stop the motion.
I tend to over-build here since I won't be UPSing any of it to anyone, anywhere.
No trade shows either, hahahahaha!

Lol, yeah, that can count! Especially since you're like an hour away from us, *hint hint*

Dude, that sounds awesome.. I gotta see it.

and...

I think my new item might actually scare alot of people, especially those who HAVE been here before because such a thing will catch them so far off-guard and relaxed..in such a prime state of mind.

Heck, I was excited to build a low tech intercom system so that our actors can talk to one another from different rooms(with us monitoring their conversations, of course, so they know to keep it related to the action and not gossip). You're really motivating me here, Jim!