Where: Hamden, Connecticut
What: The Eli Whitney Museum & Workshop
The Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop is a not-for-profit organization that preserves the site where Whitney built the first American factory in 1798, and it provides a wide array of unique and exciting learning workshops for children, teachers, and families.
Every year, thousands of students construct projects that convey core principles of invention, design, physics, problem-solving and creativity — and the use of a ShopBot Tool has helped the Workshop immensely.
The Mill
4th – 8th graders build a ‘working’ mill with a waterwheel that drives the line shafting that runs the trip hammer & drill press — bringing to life the occupations that built Connecticut.
The Measure Mobile
K- 2nd graders learn about science as they assemble this racer, then experiment with measuring distance traveled, and the effect of adding weight to the car.
A.C. Gilbert’s
All-Purpose Motor
From the Connecticut-based inventor of The Erector Set. Kids have fun making motors and pulleys…
Sally Hill, Assoc. Director and Principal Designer at the museum, says, “Our ShopBot PRSalpha 48 X 48 allows us to create, make and refine 70,000 projects a year. We design, prototype and prepare them for the studio, teach the projects — and then, learning from the workshop experiences, we refine the designs quickly and easily. We simply couldn’t do this level of refinement or produce this kind of quantity without digital fabrication technology. It’s also opening up creative possibilities for us; we’re now using other materials beyond wood that are easily cut on the ShopBot.”
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