We created two ultra-high-fidelity replicas of the Gadget, the first nuclear device, detonated at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945.

The project required painstaking research using declassified documents and archival photographs, along with consultation with engineers at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Fabrication incorporated steel, resins, plastics, wood, and other materials, with extensive scenic finishing developed to accurately reproduce the materials, textures, aging, and surfaces of the original device.

The Gadget represents a complicated and consequential chapter in the history of our country and the world. Creating such a highly detailed physical representation offered an opportunity not only to reconstruct an important historical artifact, but to help keep the history and questions surrounding it visible and open to discussion.