PERMANENT INSTALLATION
National Corvette Museum — Cave-In!
A 1,000-square-foot immersive recreation of the 2014 Skydome sinkhole at the National Corvette Museum — sculpted foam-and-paint cave walls, six short-throw projectors, and a 3D simulation of the collapse from the inside out. Built with Creative Arts Unlimited for the museum’s two-year-anniversary exhibit. Real-time interactive sinkhole exhibit — touchscreens, projection, and embedded systems engineered for daily museum operation.
On February 12, 2014, a sinkhole opened in the floor of the National Corvette Museum’s Skydome and swallowed eight Corvettes. The story became international news. Rather than repair it and move on, the museum decided to memorialize it — and built one of its most-visited exhibits around the event. Pixel Rain Digital, in collaboration with Creative Arts Unlimited, built the centerpiece: a walk-in cave that puts visitors inside the collapse.
The immersive centerpiece
Six short-throw projectors map a 3D simulation of the sinkhole collapse across sculpted foam-and-paint cave walls — recreating the exact moment the floor gave way, from inside out. The geometry was hand-fabricated with Creative Arts Unlimited; the show-control system and projection mapping was Pixel Rain’s. Visitors walk into a recreated cave that’s silent at first, then sudden, then full of falling Corvettes.
Built in Florida, opened in Kentucky
The cave was fabricated in Florida with Creative Arts Unlimited, projector-mapped and dialed-in there, then disassembled and shipped to Bowling Green for the museum install. The exhibit opened on February 12, 2016 — exactly two years to the day after the original sinkhole.
Still running
Cave-In! has been operating in the museum’s Skydome continuously since 2016. The exhibit was refreshed and re-imagined for the 10-year anniversary in 2024 as "Ground to Sky — The Sinkhole Reimagined." The original Pixel Rain projection-mapped cave remains a core element.
By the numbers
1,000
SQ FT EXHIBIT
6
SHORT-THROW PROJECTORS
8
CORVETTES SWALLOWED
Partners
National Corvette Museum · Bowling Green, KY — client and Skydome owner.
Creative Arts Unlimited · build collaborator (sculpted cave fabrication).
Pixel Rain Digital · projection mapping, show control, projector array integration.
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