After spending the morning at the Caterpillar Visitor Center and Museum, I was in the mood for more big machinery, so drove an hour and a half down the road to the John Deere Pavilion in Moline, Illinois.  Located just a couple of blocks from the Mississippi River, it’s a beautiful building and complex.  As soon as I walked in the people at the reception counter welcomed me and asked me if they could help.  I replied that I had come to climb all over big machinery!  They told me that I was absolutely in the right place, and a very nice man, a retiree from the business, showed me where everything was located, and even offered to take my picture in front of the equipment.

They know their audience very well, and immediately start you out with opportunities to get hands-on with the machines, like this loader.  For scale, the tires are each about my height, and I can stand upright in the bucket.

Because of my background in analytics and intelligent systems, I was particularly fascinated by one corner of the pavilion that no one else was paying much attention to.  It seems that farming, particularly on the industrial scale that it’s practiced in the US, has come a long way in using technology.  Much of the equipment has GPS these days, and telemetrics are widely used to relay information about the machine and the environment back to a command and control center.  I watched a video about a farmer receiving an alert when a tractor was moved from his property during the night — he was able to alert the police and tell them the route it was taking without ever leaving his home, thus preventing the theft of a valuable asset.

Another cool use of technology is having the machines talk to each other, for example having a grain cart automatically lock on to a tractor, feed it information about how full it is, and then detach to make room for the next cart.  This speeds up the harvesting process, reduces the likelihood of inefficient over or under-filling of carts, and reduces the physical labor required by the operator.  Collection and analysis of data about methods used also helps to maximize the efficiency of production.  Maybe I should be looking for a job at John Deere!

Getting back to playing with the toys, this combine harvester was the biggest machine in the room, although it was only the “medium” sized harvester available, there’s one even bigger.

Clearly a lot of carful design work went into making this cockpit a comfortable place for an operator to spend a long day.  The second seat surprised me, but I suppose it makes a lot of sense to have the ability to work in teams or to bring someone along for training or transportation.

The view from the cockpit was pretty impressive.  Although there was some electronics there, it was probably less than I would have thought.

I also learned a lot more about combine harvesting than I ever knew before, which was very cool.  How strange that in general we know so little about how our food is produced…

In contrast to the big equipment, this little robot lawn mower was the smallest Deere in the pavilion.  They had one running in a fenced area, and although the idea is very cool, I can’t say that I was convinced about it’s efficiency.  It seemed to cover the same ground multiple times, like a Roomba vacuum cleaner.  But I liked the concept.  They also had a collection of small tractors, lawn mowers, and Gators for the smaller property owner.

Without having room to display everything they produce, they had a nice cross section of farming and earth moving machines to explore.

And then this…  In addition to innovation in the area of digital technology and telemetrics, John Deere seems to have also explored different methods of travelling over rough ground.  The walking harvester below was a prototype invented to harvest trees in rough and hilly terrain, and the video of it walking was beyond cool.  It never made it into commercial production however.

It’s possible that I went through the pavilion the reverse order than what was intended, because I next came across the history section, with a collection of original old tractors, and some details about the origins of the company.

I was probably less fascinated by the history than I was by the current machines and technology, but still it was nice to have it there.  I did particularly like the cut-aways  of the engine and drive train of this tractor, giving a good view of how it all comes together.

Back to the big toys, I think if I could take any machine home with me, it would be this tractor.

Of course I have no use for it, but I like this view, and it really looks surprisingly easy to operate.

There were simulators on one side of the pavilion to teach you how to drive the equipment.  I didn’t see it mentioned, but training may also be part of the purchase package.  Both adults and kids were having a lot of fun with these.

There was even a play area for the kiddies, and I might maybe have been a little jealous of all these toys…!  Ok, when no one was looking I did play with them a little… 😉

When I got to the gift shop on the way out, I had a serious struggle not to buy a basket full of little tractors!  But I was good… unfortunately.

I really had a surprisingly great time climbing all over and exploring the machines at both the Caterpillar and John Deere visitor centers.  I learned a lot too, and was surprised at the advanced technology being used (although perhaps I shouldn’t have been).  But seriously, can we just take another minute to appreciate the awesomeness that is the Walking Harvester….  I would just love to see this walking toward me through the trees…