Eli Whitney Museum

Children in every country on every continent play with tops. Fifty years ago, Dr. King challenged us to discover the interests that all people share. The right to play is one of those universal hopes. We will begin this workshop by producing 500 top kits to send to children in 20 classrooms around the country.

On Martin Luther King's Day, join a project to produce and package tops – and of course, you will make tops for you.

The year of the Industrial Equation: 2014 is the 100th anniversary of Henry Ford's assembly line, an evolution of technology that Whitney began to develop a century earlier.

Learn to drill, cut, shape, and pack parts in a system designed to be safe, efficient, and quick (ours will also be fun – Ford's factory was revolutionary but not so much fun.) The work will leave ample time for you to design, decorate and play with your tops.

Volunteers from Yale will join the work as part of their Day of Service.