These image galleries consist of selected collections of photos taken by the course instructor Dr. Elizabeth Cavicchi. They show students participating in various class projects and assignments during the course over the semester. Please use the links on the left to navigate through the galleries.
Image Galleries
Activities with compass and spectacles
Straight lines indicate sighting lines from the viewer.
Blackboard drawings by students. Straight lines indicate sighting lines from the viewer, through a picture frame \[a vertical rectangle for the diagrams to the left; a horizontal line for the long vertically oriented diagram to the right\].
Sighting lines through a picture frame to the lute.
A glass ball as viewed in a curved mirror; student exploration.
An alignment of spectacles forms part of one students exploration in comparing the effect of looking through each.
A student examines reflections of a block and small mirror resting upright on top of a round mirror \[horizontal on the table\].
A contemporary painting involving perspective, in an art exhibit by Eric Sealine, Boston Sculptors Guild.
Student-initiated explorations with lenses, mirrors, eyeglasses and a glass ball.
Comparing two lenses by looking at print on a chart.
Trying out the eyeglasses.
An alphabet block on and surrounded by mirrors.
Intriguing explorations with light.
Examining the glass ball.
Viewing through a pinhole.
Viewing a mirror propped upright.
The mirror is at the right, upright on the floor; students view it while standing or sitting on the floor.
A student drawing the picture frame by which she viewed a lute.
Sighting activities with frames and tubes
Students stand on either side of a picture frame.
Two students observing a wooden frame from a distance.
Student uses a frame together with grating in the railing and the window.
Student drawing on paper over frame.
A student holds a frame in class to show others what she saw.
Student blackboard drawing. For the top diagram, the viewer \[left vertical hash\] and the object \[right vertical hash\] stay fixed while the frame \[hash with arrow\] is moved to the right. For the bottom diagram, the frame and the viewer are moved to the left together while the object stays fixed.
Student drawing on paper looking through a frame.
Student drawing on plexiglass of what is seen through the frame.
Students spot something in the sky.
Tubes veer toward the bright object.
Student watching through a tube.
A students phone sky program identifies the object as Jupiter.
Another student viewing the night sky through a tube.
Student drawing on paper looking at fence and shadows at sunset.
Activities in the glass blowing lab
A glass sphere made by Peter Houk.
Artist Peter Houk lays out white glass rods on a ceramic table. The rods will be incorporated into the formation of a reticello vase.
A glassblower works with an incandescent hot glass form.
One glassblower \[left\] places the vessel in the hot chamber to heat it; the other \[right\] collects hot glass from the molten supply in the furnace.
The white glass rods are laid on a table to be incorporated into the hot glass form.
The hot glass glob is rolled over the cool glass rods, picking them up as extensions of the form.
The hot glob with rods is rolled across the metal table.
A glassblower blows into the pipe, inflating the form as it is worked by the other glass blower.
The glass vase on the end of the blowpipe before it is removed.
Rolling the second vase with its rods going the other way, on the metal table.
Forming the vase with the second set of rods.
The glassblowers pipe is the horizontal rod with a red glowing glass at the end, striated with stripes of white rod glass. The rod bearing the glass is rolled back and forth on a metal support, shaping the vase.
Removing the first vase from the annealing oven, so as to combine it with the second vase.
Students view the combined vases.
The criss-cross network of the combined vase.
Rolling the criss-cross vase on the metal table.
Reforming the vase in a wood paddle.
Shaping the vase end with tongs.
Hot glass drips off the vessel after it has been dipped in the furnace for a clear outer coating.
Reshaping the clear and network form.
Student shines a light through a grid on curved plastic.
A student looks through two different lenses, held in clothespin supports.
A student arranges and looks through lenses.
A student compares two lenses.
Comparing a glass sphere \[right\] with a lens.
Looking through a lens.
The signs lettering as seen through a lens.
A student looks through two lenses mounted on the table.
Student drawing made while viewing through a lens.
Viewing the night sky through a lens that had already been explored in the lab.
Student looking through a lens outdoors at night.
Activities involving the lens
An LED flashlight projects through two lenses set up by a student making images onto the paper backdrop.
Students observe the consequences of placing a single convex lens between the flashlight and the backdrop.
Students explore a lens form using a Rive light box, which they have modified with a pink transparency over one light.
Students explore a lens and a mirror using a Rive light box having pink over one of the 3 lights.
Three students study a lab notebook.
Projecting a flashlight through lens arrangements.
The image projected from a lens onto a board.
Rive light box and lens explorations.
A lens in the light paths.
Students take notes on their experiments.
A prism in the light paths.
Activities involving light
Sunlight fills the hallway during the MIT Henge.
MIT Henge; sunlight in the hallway.
Sunlight in the hallway.
The sun is no longer aligned with the hallway.
A pink glow lingers after the sun is gone.
Students observing the night sky through a high window.
Students observing the night sky through a high window.
Activities involving motion and light
Observing a ball roll on a ramp with several hills.
Re-enacting Galileos experiments with motion, and our own.
Five different balls intrigue a student to compare and observe their motions.
Students observe the MIT Henge effect in the hallway.
The sun aligns directly with the end of the hallway; students lie down to better observe its effects.
Activities involving motion and the telescope
Student plucks a lute string.
Students discussing lab notebook results.
Tape on the blackboard records motions of a ball; measurements from the tape are on the table to the right.
Close up of the tape markings from the balls motion in a curved track.
Setting up a telescope outdoors.
A student looks through the telescope at the moon.
A marble as seen while it rests on a mirror illusion surface.
An LED flashlights pattern is projected through a series of lenses set up by a student. This produces an intriguing effect on the backdrop screen.
Students view the moon through a small telescope, seeing its magnified surface for their first time.
Students raise their glasses, toasting Galileo.
Activities involving motion, lenses and a tour of the observatory
A concave lens form is explored using the three-light source of a Rive light box.
Intriguing reflection effects result when a right-angle prism is explored with a three-light source.
A lens held over print.
Rive light box through prism.
Rive light paths with two prisms in the dark.
Student holding lenses.
Marks of a ball dropped on carbon paper pressed onto white paper.
A balls bouncing marks recorded via carbon paper.
A ball on a multi curved ramp.
Lighting a ball rolling on a multi curved ramp.
A reflector telescope at the observatory like the one we used.
Observations
Observing a building through a window and questioning whether the view would be the same through a telescope.
Looking for a regular grid structure in the side of a building seen out the window.
Observing other rectangular forms in a building seen out the window.
Students view Galileos compass in the Instrument Collection.
Student drawing an instrument in the gallery.
Student examining a historical grandfather clock.
Viewing the great orrery.
A student looks through a historical telescope in the case.
A student tries to see what the telescope was aimed at.
Activities involving motion
Student exploration with balls as these float or sink in an aquarium partly filled with water.
A student experiment involving an LED flashlight and two different lenses; what image is projected from the flashlight onto the black backdrop?
A student looks through her homemade telescope at another student.
Drawing Galileos diagrams on the board.
A students lab book drawing resembles the drawing in Keplers book.
Students rolling balls in tubes.
Rolling a ball through a tipped tube.
Rolling a ball on a cardboard ramp.
Swinging a pendulum from the hand.
Rolling a ball down a cardboard ramp.
Rolling a ball into a glass of water.
Releasing balls into water.
Balls in an aquarium.
Ball rolling on a curved mirror surface.
Student observes the ball rolling on a curved mirror surface.
Activities involving the slide rule
Students share what they discovered about unusual historical slide rules in the MIT Museum.
Students read a rotating calculation instrument in the MIT Museum.
Students hold and view circular slide rules in the storage area of the MIT Museum.
Students calculate with historical slide rules.
Student with Mickey Mouse slide rule.
Close up of a slide rule.
Student demonstrating historical slide rule.
A historical cylindrical calculator in the MIT museum.
Old-fashioned photo of a slide rule manufacturing company.
Activities involving the telescope
Students set up a Celestron reflector telescope on the MIT front steps, to view Jupiter.
Students orient the Celestron reflector telescope so as to view the moon.
Sharing the view in the reflector telescope.
The moon as seen with the naked eye.
Students enjoying their session with the reflector telescope.
Students reading historical facsimile text.
Student rolls balls down ramp.
A student in the lab observes a pendulum constructed using a metal weight hanging from a drawer handle.
Two students observe a pendulum constructed using a block of wood and a string.
Viewing activities with frames, lenses and mirrors
Three students view a mirror placed on the floor between them.
A mirror is placed on the floor \[blocked from view\] and two students back away from it.
One student \[right\] holds a mirror before another \[middle\] while a third \[left\] looks from behind.
A student holds up a mirror that reflects her face and the hallway behind her.
Students set up a picture frame with strings passing through the frame.
A student stretches string through the frame along sighting lines, marking its position with two crosswise strings.
A grid \[for viewing\] is drawn directly on the plexiglass placed over a frame. A mirror is placed above the grid.
A student sights down a tube using a crosswise straw as a gauge.
Two students sight an object and use their hands in comparing and gauging size.
Two students sight and compare an object.
Reconstructing Durers perspective sighting device using picture frames, string, and markers.
Students reproduce the image of a toy dog in perspective.
Setting up the string sight lines.
An object hangs from a string which passes through a hook on the wall via a frame.
Students reproduce the image of a lute in perspective.
Students stand so as to view along the sighting string, which passes through the frame to the lute.
The perspective image of the lute is plotted point by point onto the plexiglass mounted on the picture frame which is parallel with the view of this photo.
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January IAP
2010
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