I'm Arun from Design Squad.

This is the Waterworks Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

Whoa, what is this?

It's so big.

This is the Leavitt steam-powered water pump.

ARUN: Kathleen is an educator at the Waterworks Museum, and she took me on a tour.

KATHLEEN: And this place was built in 1886-1887 in order to get enough water into Boston.

That's cool.

The pumps were pumping water from reservoirs.

The water that this was pumping was used for drinking.

They're machines that actually used to work.

KATHLEEN: Erasmus Leavitt is the guy who designed this machine.

It was a design problem.

Most pumps built at this time either went vertically or horizontally.

How do you fit something that's big with lots of power that you want into the tight space?

ARUN: If he couldn't fit the pump vertically and if he couldn't fit the pump horizontally, I would tilt it.

KATHLEEN: Brilliant.

Erasmus Leavitt did exactly what you suggested.

And here you can see the plunger pump, and it's set at an angle.

ARUN: I think that these machines are like a piece of art.

This is the Allis-- it's our second big pump.

ARUN: I like a museum like this because the machines are so close to you and they're also really, really big.

And I love big.

Do you think you could lift one of those wrenches?

This is a very, very heavy wrench.

Okay, I think I just found a big nut.

As big as my hand, probably.

So you need really, really big wrenches.

Those things remind me of a clock.

This is another example of art, again.

KATHLEEN: So this is a steam pipe.

This is covered in walnut.

So you're right, it's another example of making a machine beautiful as well as functional.

ARUN: It's cool that this was a real functioning working place, but now it's a museum.

Wow.

KATHLEEN: Yeah.

If you're a kid who likes engineering, you could learn a lot by checking out museums.

Wow.

It's big.