Eli Whitney Museum

Leonard's eye took the world apart... down to its innermost detail: muscle and bone. His imagination put it back together in entirely new ways. Construct a working model of an arm... a design inspired by Neil Downie.

Leonardo was impatient with philosophers who gathered knowledge only from books. He shaped his ideas by experiment. Consider his wind-up car. It is a laboratory of big ideas. Construct cars that are designed for experiment: measure for distance (stored energy); knock over towers (momentum); engage in duels (game theory); and design your own challenges.

Flight captured Leonardo's imagination. He drew flying machines like birds. He also sketched spinning wings. He drew rocket launchers and catapults. Make a flying top inspired by Leonardo's drawings. Make a Rotopult for safely launching wafers of corks Frisbee-style... Leonardo's vision channeled through the ingenuity of Neil Downie.

Of course drawing is a tool for thinking. Drawing is many tools. Construct your own Eye-Pad, a portable, interactive sketchbook. Then learn approaches Leonardo proposed, to teach you tricks and skills for your eyes and hands. Games, techniques, exercises. You could call them "apps." Your artful fingers will amaze you. With guest artist Alexis Brown.

Artists use charcoal, brushes and pigment. They also use lenses, mirrors, and screens. Leonardo was a scientist of light. Construct your own light laboratory to reproduce his experiments. Capture images and project them. Reflect and refract light. Multiply and subtract with mirrors. Bend, stretch, and compress images. Make a Jell-O lens.

For ages 6-9.
Bridges fascinated Leonardo. He draws the medieval stone arches that crossed the Arno. He inserts one in the landscape of the Mona Lisa He invents clever portable bridges for armies. Construct a puzzle to learn the block work of a Roman Arch in Florence, Italy, and the shops that grew up along it. Build a model of the futuristic arch Leonardo proposed to cross the Golden Horn for the Sultan of Istanbul.

For ages 7 – 9.
Leonardo likes to play. Even as an old man, he constructed a magnificent lion for his patron, the King of France. The lion was a play on Leonardo's name. Then as the King admired it, the lion moved. It was the first wind-up toy. Then the Lion opened to reveal lillies: the royal flower. The first Transformer. Construct a simple Rollbot with many different ways to move. Make yours a lion, or a tiger, or a bear. Oh my, so many choices.

For ages 9 – 12
Leonardo saw the world in four dimensions. His drawings captured time. He recorded the movement of waves in water. He recorded the rhythmic swing of the pendulum that, by Galileo's time, would govern the mechanical clock. Again guided by Neil Downie's designs: construct a standing wave generator with motors and string, and construct the world's simplest working mechanical clock.