The Liberty Science Center in New Jersey, US, has debuted its latest exhibit – a travelling guitar museum complete with a fully functioning 43ft (13.1m) Gibson electric guitar.

‘Guitar: The Instrument that Rocked the World’ spans two galleries in the science centre and explores the evolution of the popular instrument from 3,000 BC to the present day.

The first gallery, a hands-on exhibit, includes the 2,255lb (1ton) playable guitar – the world’s largest, a virtual fretboard, wooden beat boards, “Freeze” – a vibrating string played using strobe light and a station for visitors to design their own dream guitar.

A second gallery – comprised of more than 60 rare instruments – includes early Fender, Gibson, Ovation, and Martin guitars; a Ztar Z7S synthesiser guitar with a button for every fret and string; The only playable guitar with 8 necks; a guitar inlayed with 238 pieces of gold, red and green abalone, mother of pearl and woolly mammoth ivory; and finally a series of guitars with paint jobs and shapes designed for rockers such as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist Randy Rhoads.

There will also be hands-on interactive models, touchscreens, performance videos, audio, images and photographs, pus live entertainment.

The National Guitar Museum’s travelling museum has been on the road since 2010, with variations of the current exhibit featured in 10 museums across the US. When the Liberty Science Center residency ends on 4 January, there are plans to feature it in a further 10 museums before finding a permanent home for the exhibition.

The entire collection is valued at around US$2m (€1.6m, £1.2m) and in its totality is comprised of more than 200 guitars.