Are you sure this is a journalism course and not industrial espionage?
I have no idea what it is, but lets try and extract a few facts from the picture and extrapolate from there.
It needs a lot of air, there are eight fans visible in the picture and maybe a similar number on the side we cant see.
Maybe it gets very hot.
It is very rigidly mounted on a metal frame. Maybe it has to be held in a precise position to perform its intended function.
There are lots of wires running up the support legs, including several ribbon cables (20way?).
On the end of the cylinder nearest to us is what looks to be a matrix of lights, light emitting diodes maybe.
If these are high intensity LEDs, the thing could get very hot, hence the fans.
Lots of wires, lots of LEDS, could it be that the brightness of the LEDS can be individually controlled.
So, high (adjustable) brightness LEDS, held in a rigid fixed position in front of ??
Could it be some kind of a super video projector?
Or alternatively, it could be Doc Browns next generation flux capacitor.
JimB