Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

•	Traveling Exhibits

•

Waterplay

•

The Attic

»	Garage and Workshop

•	The Studio

•	The Theater

•	Interactive Arts

•	Welcome to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

•	Toonseum Gallery

•	The Nursery

•	The Backyard

Roll up your sleeves and get busy, because the Garage/Workshop is a place where you can build things and take things apart, see how machinery and engines run, and learn how to fix them when they don’t. It’s only real machines, tools, materials and safety here.

Get behind the wheel or tinker under the hood of a real MINI Cooper in the Garage, or crank up an actual transmission and differential to see how a car works. If you can afford to, fill 'er up at a real gas pump. In the Workshop, tinkering is the rule. We have wood and electrical circuits to build with, and you are not only allowed, but encouraged to take apart household appliances like stereos and computers to see how they work.

Climb a rope net to go high into the planetarium dome on a platform where you can launch parachutes and use a pulley-and-bucket system to bring them back up. A giant twisting slide takes you back to the Museum floor in record time!

What’s the Real Stuff?
Car mechanics, carmakers and car owners need to know how cars work to keep them running smoothly and safely.

		The Garage A car’s transmission takes energy from the engine and transfers it to the wheels. Gears regulate the speed at which the wheels turn. A differential is an arrangement of gears that allows your wheels to rotate at different speeds for making turns.

The Workshop People invent, build and fix structures and objects in our world everyday. Engineers decide what materials, plans and details to use to build things. Electrical systems in things like computers, telephones and motors help us communicate and do our work. Tinkering is an important part of the process.

		The Climbing Structure Parachutes Gravity pulls a person or object down toward the earth as it falls. Air resistance slows it down. A parachute creates more air resistance by holding the air in its shoot, slowing the object down so it can land instead of crash. The Pulley Pulleys are simple machines that allow you to lift heavy objects using less force. A pulley’s rope is attached on one end to the object you are lifting and then passes over a pair of small wheels. As you pull down on the other end of the rope to lift the heavy object, each pair of pulleys you use decreases the amount of force you need to lift the object. Pulleys can be found many places, including construction sites where they help workers lift heavy objects, in elevators where they help lift passengers, and on sailboats where they help raise sails.

Interactive Art: Pulley Slowly Rolling Bop Operate your own Rube-Goldberg style roller coaster with a ball that loops high above the Kid’s Climber on a wire track. Flip switches to make it turn, intersect, and return back home. A hand-operated lift sends the balls back up from the Museum floor. Created by Henry Loustau. Funded by The Perelman Family

Explore more

Explore more about these topics with the following books and websites. Many of the books can be reserved online from the Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh. The first category is books and website geared toward the Pre-K child; the rest of the categories are for all ages.

Do It Yourself

After you've visited this exhibit be sure you try these activities: Build a Stool.

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The Garage

The Workshop

The Climbing Structure

Interactive Art: Pulley Slowly Rolling Bop

Flying Machines and Simple Machines

Building, Woodworking, Electronics and Tools

Cars and Car Maintenance

3-D Sound