The Cooper Hewitt occupies the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Two 84-inch displays are lined up next to each other in one of the upper halls of the museum.
The tables also have NFC tags where the pen can be used to spill visitor's personal collections out onto the displays.
The "stream" flows through the middle of each display, and is a way for visitors to discover objects that they may never have known about otherwise.
All you have to do is just drag an object from the stream to the spot in front of you to learn more about it.
Each object that you browse brings up a number of related objects curated by the museum's staff.
Visitors can create their own objects on the tables, from lamps to buildings.
Some of the most fun you can have at the tables is achieved by drawing random shapes and seeing which objects the software pulls from the archives.
The Pen has an NFC antenna at one end, and is a capacitive stylus at the other.
Each pen has a wrist strap, and is designed in a way that people of any age can learn how to use it just from watching other visitors.
Each item on display has a crosshair next to it. All you have to do is tap the pen to it and the item is added to your collection. Lights and a small vibration signal that it was successfully added.
Early prototypes of the Pen are on display at the museum as well.
The Pen is actually powered by three AAA batteries, which should last for months at a time.
The Pen went through many iterations before the museum settled on the final design. At one point early in the process, the staff toyed with the idea of NFC rings.
One of the new features at the museum is the Immersion Room.
4K projectors illuminate the floor-to-ceiling screens.
Aaron Cope, the head engineer for the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, takes us through a tour of the wallpaper archives.
You can also create your own wallpaper design. The walls change in real time as you draw, and at the end you can save the design with the Pen.
In the Immersion Room you can either create your own wallpaper or pull existing ones from the archives with the stream.
Cope whips up a wallpaper design of his own.
The Immersion Room lives up to its name, but you can't stay long. Each visitor has a five-minute time limit.