Employees at Imagine It! The Children's Museum of Atlanta are putting the finishing touches on their upcoming exhibit, "Under the Big Top: You're the Ringmaster," opening Saturday.

The downtown museum often borrows exhibits from other children's museums, but this one was created and designed in-house, and built in the scene shop of Georgia Shakespeare. The exhibit fills about 2,500 square feet and cost about $150,000, including educational materials, promotion and commissioning a new 20-minute educational play.

John Spink/AJC (ENLARGE)
Nathan Green with Georgia Shakespeare paints one of the cutouts that children will put their face in that will make them a circus animal or clown. Imagine it ! The Children's Museum of Atlanta is using Georgia Shakespeare's scene shop to build a child-safe exhibit to promote eating balanced meals, learning food groups and exercising.
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It's sort of like making a stage set — except that thousands of kids will bang on it, climb it, and try to turn every piece into a weapon.

"A big part of exhibit design is thinking about what the kids are going to do to break stuff or hurt themselves," said Roxanne Flagg, exhibits development manager. "We get 180,000 visits, so the materials have to be able to withstand a lot of abuse."

Flagg goes to extremes to make sure exhibit components are tough and kid-safe. "I've even backed over things with my car," she said.

Here are some of the other things the museum did to steel itself against all the destructive little devils who will be descending on the museum in the months to come:

• A 6-foot man jumped to see if he could reach any of the items hanging from the ceiling.

• To eliminate toddler choking hazards, no pieces are small enough to fit in toilet paper tubes.

• Tough fiberboard is used instead of real wood to avoid splinters.

• For the circus' "ring of fire" display, which kids jump through, blower's air holes are small enough that children's fingers can't fit in them.

• Soft, squishy balls used in "Bowl for Your Health."

• Obstacle course is made of sturdy, thick, covered foam like the big blocks in preschools.

• All edges are rounded and smoothed.

• Electrical outlets have safety covers.

CHILDREN'S EXHIBIT

"Under the Big Top: You're the Ringmaster" uses a circus theme to promote good nutrition, physical fitness and healthy self-image in kids. Friday through Sept. 14. 275 Centennial Olympic Park Drive NW, Atlanta. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $11 adults and kids 2 and older. www.imagineit-cma.org or call 404-659-5437.