In the early 1800s, Thomas Davenport, a poor, young, self-taught blacksmith in Vermont tinkered with magnets to create, and eventually receive a patent for, the first electric motor. Nearly 200 years later, middle-schoolers in Albemarle, Virginia, are tinkering with modern 3-D printing technology to reconstruct and model his historic invention. The Albemarle County Public School District—in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Virginia—is creating this project-based curriculum with nearly $3 million in support from the Department of Education's I...