Eli Whitney Museum

On July 4th, 1993, the Eli Whitney Museum in partnership with the South Central Regional Water Authority, the National Science Foundation and nearly a dozen corporate friends renewed the teaching legacy of this site with an outdoor experiment area which engages, a new generation, in the fundamental engineering experiences of the stream and sandbox. It is a shared resource for the region, and a model for schools and communities across the nation.

The armory model tells the story of the work Whitney directed here and significant changes that are discernible in that work. Our sources: period artwork, Whitney’s probate inventory, records of parallel armories, and informed guesswork. The model is constructed in 1/3 scale.

Why marbles?

Children discover the power of marbles before they understand it. Marbles need no captions. Marbles speak their own language. Marbles know all the laws of nature and they obey them in their simplest possible form.

Marbles are the atoms of experience.