When it comes to mining, an old saying goes, “The deeper you dig, the richer the reward.” Komatsu tapped a rich vein of exhibiting at MINExpo 2024. “The most complex challenge was creating a rock wall that felt as real as the environment our customers work in every day,” said Karl Baseman, senior design director at Spiro, Komatsu's exhibit house.

Visitors entering the 2,800-square-foot space found themselves dwarfed by an imposing wall reaching 21.5 feet at its tallest point. Built with a wood support structure covered in carved foam and finished with realistic rock textures, the man-made rampart replicated the types of hard rock Komatsu's mining machines typically operate in. More than an imposing backdrop, the wall plunged visitors deep inside the story of underground mining, with Komatsu's equipment, solutions, and safety systems inventively embedded into the faux rock to appear as if they were tunneling into the earth.

Judges praised the booth as “a gold mine of authenticity,” especially with patterns carved into the foam wall painstakingly modeled after the marks Komatsu machines' rotating “teeth” leave. Spotlights targeted particular cut marks to show how mining in coal, for example, differs from mining in salt. While seven integrated screens on the wall streamed data on stages of mining, from crushing and sizing rock to tunnel boring, the booth itself was the story, with attendees in the role of prospectors who struck it rich, not with gold or silver, but with information. E