Engineering

Design your own car with parts we provide you. You can use anything from gussets of different sizes, wheels, dowels and more. Devise a car with optimal abilities by trial and error. Test out your invention, adjust it, try again. The possibilities are endless! Test your car on different kinds of surfaces, ask questions, make observations, and further your invention.

Gravity and Friction, two forces we are always up against can be used to our advantage. Learn to put these forces to good use by building a car whose speed depends on weights, incline, and gravity. Can you design a car with the greatest potential energy? This is your opportunity to make predictions and record your hypotheses. Make your car unique by designing how it looks too.

Build a water pump that honors Indian Educator, Arvind Gupta’s design. Learn how to engineer the optimal angles and speed to help this work at its best. Connect motion and transfer of energy to help you create a water pump that fans out water. Always fun on a hot day!

The Whitney Relay is a set of interconnectable parts that lets students master the art and science of energy transfer in the tradition of the Rube Goldberg Machine or its contemporary Japanese masterpiece: the Pythagoras Switch. Each student receives ramps,  marbles, blocks, and assorted parts to construct a chain reaction that could include your whole class. Thoughtful lessons in mechanics, invention and teamwork. 

A battery's current flows in one direction. Clever arrangement of switches can reverse that direction. Construct a controller with a battery, motor and ultralight buggy which can go forward or backward. Learn wiring logic, precision, and troubleshooting. Test and play, experiment and investigate.
 

A popular project that teaches game design (beginnings, middles and ends), logic (rewards for difficulty), marble movement (caroms, momentum) and creative design (good games must still attract players.) A rare exploration of the work of play. Use marbles, a launcher, hurdles, and more to devise and personalize your own Pinball Machine. Figure out your own rules, scoring, and goals. Play with friends, test, adjust and keep going.

Explore the ancient history and challenging mechanics of catapults. Rubber bands power this model. Experiment with the concepts of force and motion and test your projects out with varying degrees of power by changing the amount of rubber bands used and position of the ping pong balls. 

Safe for people and places when used with the ping pong ball provided.

Construct a music machine. Hear the logic of Leonardo's mind at work as he invents the first modern robot, an automatic drummer whose rhythms can be reprogrammed flexibly and whose tempos adjust automatically. Invent your own cadences and rhythms.

The legacy of the Museum begins in 1798 When Eli Whitney first chose a site on the Mill River to build his Armory. Chosen for its access to a strong current of water, Whitney intended to use this as a power source for the machines he would use to produce the parts of his contract musket. Whitney, however, was not the first to see the potential of this site as a grist mill had been located on the grounds previously. Over time the site has taken on new residencies and has physically changed as well.

Bridges are a natural laboratory of engineering: they test the strength of materials and the durability, connections, patterns of distributing loads, shifting loads and environments. 

Construct model bridges that help you identify the many challenges that bridges must master. A Keystone bridge which can hold more weight than you'd imagine and a puzzle bridge designed by Leonardo daVinci. Both are built without glue and still hold strong.