Journey of Grain
Children’s Discovery Museum
Grown Right Here
The newly reimagined second floor of the Children's Discovery Museum is home to the "From the Farm to a Healthy Me" gallery — an interactive space built to connect Central Illinois kids to the farms and food systems that shape their world. The concept came together through a close collaboration between Luci Creative and the museum, who worked directly with real local farmers to ground every detail in authentic storytelling. Boss Display was brought in as the mechanical design and fabrication partner to take that vision off the page and build it into something kids could actually get their hands on. From the start, the goal was clear — create a seamless, hands-on journey through the grain lifecycle that sparks the kind of curiosity and discovery the museum was built around.
Built to Connect
Every project has its constraints, and this one was no exception. The core challenge was a delicate balancing act — preserving the educational integrity of real agricultural processes while transforming them into interactive experiences accessible to young children. Beyond the conceptual, there were real physical demands to meet. All seven stations had to occupy specific corners of the second-floor gallery, leaving no room for approximation. Every component was custom-engineered to fit precisely within the space, requiring a level of planning and coordination that started long before fabrication ever began. On top of that, the seven stations couldn't simply coexist — they had to connect. The finished experience needed to feel like a single, continuous journey from harvest to livestock, with each stop building naturally on the last.
The grain dryer, bins and distribution tubes simulate real life practices in the processing of grain.
From Harvest to Home
That connective thread runs straight through the build itself. Seven interconnected stations each represent a distinct stage of the grain processing cycle, forming one continuous hands-on journey from harvest to livestock. The experience begins at the Combine, where guests can explore the machine from inside the cab before sending balls on their way to the Transport Truck and up through the Grain Elevator. From there, the journey moves through the Grain Dryer and into the Grain Bins, where blowers, sensors, and rotating paddles keep everything in motion. Distribution Tubes then route balls to different corners of the exhibit — mirroring the way grain moves at a commercial scale — before the journey wraps up at the Livestock Interactive, where guests direct feed to pigs or cows and are rewarded with the sounds to match.
“We joke around in our museum that we have commercial-grade products, industrial-grade products, nuclear-grade products, and then children’s museum products. And so we take it very seriously that it has to be indestructible, and Boss believes that, too.”
Everything Coming Together
In the end, the exhibit delivers exactly what the Children's Discovery Museum set out to create. Children moving through the space aren't passive observers — they're making decisions, solving problems, and following a process from beginning to end. Every station asks something of them, whether it's turning a hand crank, choosing which gate to open, or figuring out where to send the next ball. That active engagement is exactly the kind of critical thinking and curiosity the museum's mission calls for. At the same time, the experience is rooted in something real. The farms, the equipment, the lifecycle of grain — these aren't abstract concepts invented for a museum floor. They're the landscape Central Illinois children grow up in, and this exhibit gives them a new way to see and understand it. The best exhibits don't just fill a space — they give it purpose.
Client Testimonial
Features:
Combine | This interactive introduces the grain harvesting process. Guests transport balls to the ball bin, where they travel beneath the combine tire to the blower cabinet. Guests then select one of three inlets to send the balls to the next exhibit. The combine cab is accessible via stairs or rear steps, allowing guests to explore the machine from within.
Transport Truck | Interactive exhibit representing an agricultural grain trailer with a functional trap door and funnel. Balls are fed from the combine via tube, causing them to collect in the trailer window until a certain amount of time has passed or the window becomes full. Once either of the conditions are met, the balls drop down through the trailer into the collection bin on the ground, where guests can take them to the next interactive.
Grain Elevator | Interactive exhibit representing industrial agricultural equipment for moving grain into storage bins. The elevator works by rotating the handwheel clockwise to move balls up and over the conveyor where they will be sent to the grain dryer via polycarbonate tubes. The conveyor only rotates one way and has mechanical jam-resistant features in the exit ramp at the top of the structure.
Grain Dryer | Interactive exhibit representing an industrial grain dryer. As balls flow into the exhibit from the Grain Elevator, a sensor is triggered and activates a blower and LED indicative of heating elements. Visitors can interact with the balls falling through the plinko chamber by turning the hand wheel and directing air flow. Balls fall into a collection bin where they can be removed and taken to the next interactive.
Grain Bins | A button-activated blower cabinet launches balls into an overhead diverter assembly that distributes the balls between the two bins. Inside of the bins, there are rotating paddles and collection discs that direct the balls’ pathways. Balls fall through the bins and accumulate in the wooden crates below.
Distribution Tubes | Distribution tubes show the commercial delivery of grain to end users. Using a blower cabinet with three blowers, guests send balls through three separate pipes to different areas of the exhibit, demonstrating how grain is routed at scale. One path leads to the combine, another to the livestock pen, and lastly out into the exhibit area for kids to catch.
Livestock Interactive Storage Unit | Marking the final stage of the grain lifecycle, this station shows how grain is fed to livestock. Guests lift one of two gates to direct balls to either pigs or cows. As balls drop into each pen, the interactive produces corresponding animal sounds. Collection baskets are stored beneath the exhibit.
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