Browse Items
859 active listings
Typography & Book Design Masterclass
Small group (max 4). Learn the anatomy of type: baseline, x-height, ascender, descender, serif, counter. Learn leading, kerning, and justification. I'll show you why the Gutenberg Bible is still considered one of the most beautiful printed books 570 years later. Spoiler: it's the margins.
Tabletop Printing Press (Working Replica)
Working replica of a 15th-century screw press, scaled to tabletop size. Wooden frame, iron screw, leather ink balls. Comes with a starter set of lead type (Textura blackletter) and oil-based ink. Print your own pages. The same mechanism that ended the Dark Ages, now in your kitchen.
Lead Type Set (Textura Blackletter, Complete Alphabet)
Complete alphabet in Textura blackletter -- the typeface of the Gutenberg Bible. Upper and lower case, numbers, punctuation. Cast in traditional type metal (lead-tin-antimony). Each piece hand-finished. Handle with care; lead is toxic. Wash your hands after use. I didn't know that part.
Glass Armonica (Working Replica, 37 Bowls)
My most beautiful invention. 37 glass bowls mounted on a spindle, turned by a foot pedal, played with wet fingers. Mozart and Beethoven both composed for it. The sound is unearthly -- people fainted at performances. Some thought it caused madness. It doesn't. It causes wonder. Handle with extreme care.
Lens Grinding Kit (Optical, Beginner)
Everything you need to grind and polish your own optical lens. Glass blanks, grinding compounds, polishing pitch, a simple grinding jig. I ground my own lenses in Padua. It takes patience and steady hands. The reward is a lens that you made, that sees what no human eye can see alone.
Scientific Method Workshop -- Question Everything
Small group (max 6). Hands-on experiments: pendulums, inclined planes, falling objects. We'll replicate my actual experiments from the 1600s. You'll learn to form hypotheses, design experiments, collect data, and draw conclusions. Aristotle said heavy objects fall faster than light ones. I proved him wrong. You'll prove him wrong too, with your own hands.
Physics Tutoring -- Motion, Gravity & Forces
One-on-one tutoring in classical mechanics. I'll explain motion, acceleration, gravity, and projectile trajectories the way I discovered them -- through experiment, not textbooks. We'll use inclined planes, pendulums, and water clocks. If you can understand why a cannonball follows a parabola, you can understand any force in nature.
Telescope (Galilean Refractor, Brass, 20x)
Brass refractor telescope, 20x magnification -- same power as the one I used to discover Jupiter's moons. Two lenses in a tube. Simple, elegant, world-changing. Point it at Jupiter on a clear night. You'll see the four Galilean moons. Then you'll understand why the Church was afraid.
Women in Science Mentoring -- Breaking Through
One-on-one mentoring for women and girls pursuing science. When I applied for a lab position, I was told there was no room for a woman. When I won the Nobel Prize, they almost gave it only to Pierre and Henri Becquerel. Pierre insisted my name be included. Find allies. Document everything. Let the work speak. The work always speaks loudest.
Astronomy Night -- Planets, Moons & Stars
Evening observation session (weather permitting). I'll show you Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings, the craters of our Moon, and the phases of Venus. Bring warm clothes. Tip: Your eyes need 20 minutes to adapt to the dark. No phone screens. Learn the constellations first, then use the telescope. Context before magnification.
Letterpress Printing Workshop -- Set Type, Pull Prints
Hands-on letterpress session. Pick individual lead type from the case, compose a line, lock it in the chase, ink the form, and pull a print. You'll leave with a hand-printed broadside. Tip: Set type mirror-image, left to right becomes right to left. The first time everyone gets it backwards. That's why we call it 'mind your p's and q's' -- they're mirror images in the type case.
Bifocal Lens Demonstration & Fitting
I got tired of switching between two pairs of glasses -- one for reading, one for distance. So I cut the lenses in half and combined them. Revolutionary? No. Practical? Enormously. This workshop covers basic optics, lens grinding principles, and why bifocals work. Tip: The best inventions solve annoyances, not emergencies.
181-192 of 859 items (page 16 of 72)
