  As astronomy moves into the era of large-scale time-domain surveys, we are
seeing a flood of new transient and variable sources which will reach biblical
proportions with the advent of LSST. A key strategic challenge for astronomy in
this era is the lack of suitable spectroscopic followup facilities. In response
to this need, we have developed the PolyOculus approach for producing
large-area-equivalent telescopes by using fiber optics to link modules of
multiple semi-autonomous, small, inexpensive, commercial-off-the-shelf
telescopes. Crucially, this scalable design has construction costs which are
$>10x$ lower than equivalent traditional large-area telescopes. In addition,
PolyOculus is inherently highly automated and well-suited for remote
operations. Development of this technology will enable the expansion of major
research efforts in the LSST era to a host of smaller universities and
colleges, including primarily-undergraduate institutions, for budgets
consistent with their educational expenditures on similar facilities. We
propose to develop and deploy a 1.6-m prototype demonstrator at the Mt. Laguna
Observatory in California, followed by a full-scale 5-meter-class PolyOculus
facility for linkage to existing and upcoming time-domain surveys.
