12+

Join our Design & Production Intern, Oscar Segui Jr., for a week of digital music production. Learn the basics of music composition and digital software to bring your sounds and songs to life.

Play with A Broken Umbrella Theatre and learn the building blocks of ensemble theater-making.
A Broken Umbrella Theater is proud to team up with the Eli Whitney Museum & Workshop and C. Delari Johnston’s Costuming Camp again this summer. They will be offering a one-week theater camp for students interested in creating original devised work. Through the uses of improv, theater games, and a little bit of history, campers will work to create original pieces. The theme this year is the “Factory”.

Learn how to sew by hand and on a sewing machine. You will grasp everything from how to thread a needle, knot a thread, and create a pattern for the pillow and bag you will make this week.

Using your new sewing skills, you will explore the different ways the world uses the same tools
and materials to create beautiful and functional items.

We’ve all been there. Your favorite toy car broke or your dog bit your legos. There’s no way to salvage that beloved item that had been so dear to your heart. Look no further! With the help of 3D Printing, those forgotten, disfigured items can be not only fixed but improved! The limits of creation are your imagination. You can design a new spoiler for your toy car or a one-of-a-kind Lego piece to use in your next builds.
You will learn how to use 3D-modelling software to model digital objects in order to solve the problems an engineer would regularly face. You’ll master every step of the process, from the initial sketches to the final layout and printing in slicing software. Be prepared to take on a plethora of design challenges, the solutions to which are up to you to find out.

Mosaic is the art of creating images with pieces of glass, stone, or pottery. Explore this art form and learn the same techniques used by ancient civilizations, from the Romans and Greeks to the early Byzantine Empire. You will learn the basics of breaking and cutting materials with special mosaic and glass cutting tools, as well as designing and arranging the tiles to create works of art. 

Learn the basics of electronics: the interactions between batteries, resistors, transistors, and other components. Then, apply that knowledge by constructing a series of increasingly complex projects on breadboards, small devices that allow for quickly and temporarily prototyping electronic circuits.

Learn not only how to assemble these projects, but also tricks to make your prototypes easy to understand and less likely to break. Explore the purpose of each device in the circuit, how to make last-minute changes if you are missing parts, and how to troubleshoot when things aren't working as expected.

End the week with not only several interesting circuits, but also the supplies and knowledge to develop your own simple circuits.
 

Technology surrounds us and is so woven into our everyday lives.  Even entertainment, like video games, has grown so much in popularity and accessibility becoming a driving force in our culture. Despite this, it is nice to take a step back and see which way the dice fall. In the tradition of classic tabletop gaming, create a war band of miniatures and skirmish with other 'bands' to gain wealth, power, and size. Painting your figures gives them a personality all their own. In between games, help with the construction of a detailed scenery board to have for years to come. Build the environment, learn strategies, play the game. All levels are welcome.

Students will learn the art of milling and discover where computer-aided design meets the physical world. Conceive, draw, prototype, and mill your own unique creation. Learn how individual parts and to a greater whole. Using computer-aided design (CAD) software, each student will draw his/her own unique object that they can then produce using our industrial 3-axis Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) routers.
 

In this class, students will develop skills to build their own (micro) city. A procedurally generated terrain is divided into 12 equal parts. Each student chooses a plot of land to build on. The challenge is to work independently while striving for a unified symbiotic city. One student may design a wind farm to power the newly formed city and another a multi-unit housing project. By planning as a group the individual parts of the city will come together to form a new world.

Fiber arts have long been used to tell stories, preserve traditions, and communicate identity through materials, pattern, and process. In Fiber Arts:  Stories Woven by Hand, campers will explore how fiber art differs from and/or expands upon more traditional art forms by allowing for a unique medium for storytelling and personal expression. Using examples from local artists and cultural traditions, campers will learn techniques as starting points and adapt them to create work that reflects their own ideas and experiences.

Campers will explore a variety of fiber arts techniques, including crocheting, hand sewing, embroidery, friendship-bracelet making, basket weaving inspired by local Native American traditions, and miniature God’s-eye–style tapestries. Through guided projects and open-ended experimentation, campers will develop practical hand skills while creating both decorative and functional pieces. Additional activities such as tie-dye and geometry-based string art will introduce campers to color theory, pattern, and the mathematical principles behind fiber arts.

Get ready to laugh! The Regicides of A Broken Umbrella Theatre are bringing their Comedy Improv Summer Camp to the Eli Whitney Museum & Workshop! Kids will master "Yes, And!", build scenes, create wild characters, and play hilarious improv games—leading up to a joy-filled final showcase.