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Gallery 2: Tinkering
Think with your hands and explore your creativity.
Making things and developing ideas by hand helps us construct understanding. Slow down, settle in, and make something personally meaningful—from playful contraptions to surprising connections between mechanical systems and natural phenomena.
Circles of Magnetism
Electricity moving in a wire makes a circular magnetic field.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Circuit Workbench
Try building these circuits found in everyday objects.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Lariat Chain
This artwork by Norman Tuck demonstrates that a very simple system—a metal chain hanging from a motor-driven bicycle wheel—can generate complex behaviors.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Magnetic Clouds
"Clouds" of iron particles dart and dance in a magnetic field.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Magnetic Fluid Patterns
A magnet's force gathers and disperses a magnetic fluid in dynamic patterns.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Rolling Through the Bay
Artist Scott Weaver has spent over 40 years painstakingly constructing this replica of the city of San Francisco out of toothpicks. Ping-pong balls added here or there wind their way through the model, visiting various famous sites along the way.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Tinkerer's Clock
Just outside the Tinkering Studio stands a twenty-two-foot-high clock. Small cartoon characters are poised to oil, brush, weld, or otherwise tinker with the numerals; knobs let visitors animate the characters so they can attend to their tasks. On the hour, the work is finished. The numbers swing out to form a clock face and a mellow Chinese gong rings.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Tinkering Tiles
This playful physical glossary models the many modes of making.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
Uroborus: A Snake Chasing Its Tail
In this device, a motor turns a wooden snake tail. When the tail pushes the snake head, it changes the connections and the motor changes direction.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
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