Hands on Stories

Listen, look, and build. We offer a whole library of projects to help our students get in touch with famous stories.

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Balancing Circus

The Circus explores the art and science of balance, forces, center or gravity and performance. Conceived with a nod to artist /engineer Sandy Calder, each circus tests classic experiments at work.

Expands STC curriculum.

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Machine Design

Experiment with mechanical movement: use cams and wheels to change the speed, direction and shape of motion. Invent applications for motions: create figures that dance or jump, fence or box. Put your imagination in motion.

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Simple Machines

Whitney demonstrated the power of machines to guide and ease work. The screws, threads, levers and pulleys of this machine organize effort into power you can feel. Students assemble interchangeable parts and invent a personality for their machine.

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Pinball Machine

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.

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Rubber Band Car

Students construct cars powered by rubber bands and measure their performance after 20 minutes of practice. Lively insights into the mechanics, measurement and math of motion. Great for a followup program on creative elaboration. New design now employs wheels of diameter 1/π.

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Hill Quest

Wheels, axles, chassis parts, connectors and rubber bands are the basic components of each kit that allows students to construct cars that sprint or creep to the top of a wooden ramp…jousting with another student’s car. Challenge: Beat your opponent to the top of the three foot ramp and hold your ground. The project tests all the dynamics of Force and Motion and tests planning and problem solving.

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Electromagnet

Switch on understanding. Construct a battery pack. Test it. Connect a simple switch Test it. Install an incandescent light. Test it. Then experiment with other challenges.... Lessons in electricity and thinking.

Including a new green LED circuit.

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Xylophone

Use eyes and hands to count and sort the wooden bars to build this six note percussion instrument. Build manual dexterity and order memory to string it together with spacers between each bar. Number each bar from 1 to 6, use letters, or use color to code the bars. Then learn to play familiar tunes with the music book that matches the numbering system.

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Robot Drum

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.

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Life Stages - Butterfly

Each living thing goes through stages of development. Construct a small theater with scenes that change to present the growth cycle of plants or animals. We offer materials to study typically pumpkins or butterflies. With a design flexible enough for teachers and students to go back to their classes and present another life cycle on the reverse side of each stage block.

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Rocks of Connecticut

Each child will build a display box to sort and test 6 (plus a mystery rock) rocks and minerals brought to the Museum from across Connecticut. Each sample will have different properties.

Every student will learn to use and will take home a lighted field microscope (10x - 60x).

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Sustainable House

Construct a birdhouse of sustainably harvested pine and re-used plywood. Learn the measurements of adapting house to species. Learn to site house for temperature and security. Learn annual recycling. Learn sensible building choices for birds (and people) Or a birdfeeder.

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Magnetic Pendulum

All creatures live in a web of resources that support or suppress their growth. Create a dynamic model of an insect’s or bird’s world. Suspend a magnetized creature on a pendulum. Add food and shelter (with magnets) that attract the creature and predators and hazards that repel it. The creature navigates a complex and fascinating path.

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Sustainable Energy

Windmills have captured renewable energy for up to 2000 years. In new forms, wind machines will harness even more power in the future. Construct a classic whirligig to control, measure and apply wind power. With adjustable rotors.

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Connecticut Clipper or New England Whaling

In the first half of the 19th century, Connecticut joined the race to California and China in sleek, bold Clipper Ships. Construct a model clipper with a hold to export and import cargo that built Connecticut's industry and commerce.

Using the Charles W. Morgan, (a 19th c. whaling ship now berthed at Mystic Seaport) as a model, understand the industry that brought whalebone to the Strouse Adler Company Corset Factory in New Haven to make undergarments for upstanding Connecticut ladies.

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Woodland Village

Each student constructs half inch scale figures and a lodge… representing Quinnipiac or other woodland traditions…trees, tools, and totems that can be combined in a diorama of native American life. Adapt contemporary materials with the resourcefulness once applied to barks, skins and shells.

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Balance / Folk Toys

Immigrants brought to America traditions of crafting simple playthings out of common materials. These toys develop dexterity and inventiveness. Two toys from the catalog of classics. Understand Force and Motion or connect to Colonial curriculum or the geography of play. Yesterday's toys for today's kids – and they still evoke wonder. Nothing and everything is new.

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Mechanical Arm

Based on a design by British scientist Neil Downie, this is an exemplary model. It demonstrates the complex force of flexing muscle. Construct an arm that contracts and extends. consider Leonardo daVinci's study of anatomy and the robot mechanics it inspired. Domo arigato, Robot Armo!

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