[Ianworld]

That looks fantastic but you're right its going to be heavy. One thing to keep in mind this year is that the ringers only weigh about a pound. That device there could probably, based on my wildly inaccurate guess, support about 150 pounds just as a point of context. The first thing to do is think about your material. Aluminum square tube extrusion or 80/20 is probably a good place to start. With 80/20 you can purchase linear slides. I'm not exactly sure what they're rated for, but considering what teams have used them for in the past you can probably get away with a very lightweight design(one 80/20 strut, if properly designed).

As for the weight of a set up a good number to remember is that aluminum weighs .1 pounds per cubic inch. So a foot long piece of square aluminum tube 1" x 1" with a 1/8" wall weighs a little over half a pound. So an elevator that is 8 feet high could easily have about 20 feet of extrusion and weigh about 10 pounds but at the same time that would probably be overkill.