Water at Work
The Regnier Family Wonderscope Children's Museum of Kansas City
Celebrating a New Museum Space
After outgrowing its suburban location of 30 years, the Wonderscope Children’s Museum began work on a spacious centrally-located facility in Kansas City, Missouri. Boss Display worked with Haizlip Studios, the firm leading the museum redesign, and Dimensional Innovations, to create a water exhibit that would make the most of the new space’s high ceilings and large footprint. The result — a tall, expansive display called WaterWorks — invites guests to get their hands wet with a wide array of Kansas City-themed water interactives.
Maximum Space, Maximum Fun
Set in a large and well-lit gallery, WaterWorks is configured in an unique T-shape that helps to maximize the number of interactive components, providing extra room for playing, experimenting, and splashing. To maintain the openness of the space, Boss Display fabricators built a custom ceiling framework to mount essential site utilities above the water exhibit and out of the way of guests. The framework also allowed for the installation of several other interactives, including a twisting overhead track that carries balls over the exhibit and into a large vortex.
Community Connections
Boss Display worked closely with Hazlip Studio to ensure WaterWorks meshed with the new museum’s overarching designs and themes — all of which were informed by a series of community focus groups to incorporate distinctive Kansas City elements. Across the exhibit, guests can sail miniature boats through waterways resembling the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, plant toy trees in a waterside park, or create beautiful water displays that further enhance the city’s reputation for stunning public fountains.
“Boss’ ability to quickly ‘see’ and then execute our designs is without equal. Their openness to work within each project’s budget is refreshing and they always go above and beyond in recommending alternate solutions to increase visitor interaction.”
Learning Together
Through trial-and-error learning, kids work together to experiment and predict which sailboats will win a boat race or how to control the flow of water with small dams and locks. Visitors test their fine-motor skills, and learn about the Bernoulli Principle, with water jets that blast plastic balls into a swirling vortex. And everyone enjoys lifting water and objects through the Archimedes screw, a modern version of a simple hydrodynamic machine that dates back to ancient Egypt. In the end, WaterWorks celebrates the many ways in which people learn by engaging in hands-on play — staying true to the Wonderscope museum’s commitment to “learning through the universal and uniting power of play.”
Features:
Observation Windows | Clear acrylic side panels allow guests to watch different reactions underneath the surface of the water.
Archimedes screw and water wheel | Visitors can spin a large stainless steel Archimedes Screw to carry water up and into a water wheel.
Fan fountains | An easy-to-use handwheel rushes water through fountains that form various fan-shaped patterns.
Water blasters with interactive targets | Movable water blasters can be aimed at targets that set off interactives such as a tipping bucket and vertical spinner.
Build-a-fountain | Guests can experiment with different shaped wands that can be pressed onto a water spout to create a variety of fountains.
Small vortex | Place balls into the small vortex and watch them spin down the water funnel.
Build-a-pipes | Using clear tubes and connectors, visitors can design water pathways to toys and other fun interactives.
Dam tabs area | Create miniature dams and control the water flow across this waterfall-fed display area.
Boat race buoys | Users navigate around floating buoys throughout a boat racing area, making vessels dodge obstacles to reach the finish line.
Build-a-forest | Choose from four types of model trees to create your own waterside forest.
Dam Gates | Swinging plastic tabs act as gates to dam water, altering the current’s flow.
Laminar ball-launch fountains | Activated by handwheels, fountains shoot smooth laminar jets of water to send balls into the giant vortex.
Giant vortex | A swirling whirlpool forms inside a large open acrylic container, the giant vortex catches balls launched from the laminar fountains and the overhead ball track. Balls travel down the vortex and return to the water table via two separate exit points.
Ball blower and overhead ball track | Guests feed balls into a blower cabinet to send them up to the overhead track and down into the giant water vortex.
Overhead cascading pans | Water runs through three cascading pans overhead of the water table and feeds into the Giant Vortex.
Fog mushroom fountain | Guests break the flow of water, releasing fog and watch as it reshapes and refills before their eyes.
Other Featured Work
