Dreamers of the Sun: Building the Universe in a Rishon LeZion Basement
In the heart of Rishon LeZion, a group of veteran science popularizers is crafting a dynamic mechanical model of the solar system, navigating complex engineering and educational dilemmas.
"All adults were once children, but only a few of them remember it," wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. One evening, my friend and teacher Moshe Reshpon called me, excited about a new project he was developing with his partner, Didi Vardi. I immediately sensed a compelling story, and in early January 2026, I found myself at the entrance to a basement in central Rishon LeZion.
Inside, I met a group of remarkable individuals. Regardless of their biological age, they all shared a youthful sparkle in their eyes and pure enthusiasm for the project taking shape in Vardi's workshop.
Education Through Experience
Reshpon and Vardi are living legends of science popularization. Moshe Reshpon (92), a physicist and educator, is considered one of the fathers of informal science education in Israel. He founded the youth camps at the Weizmann Institute of Science, which later evolved into the Davidson Institute of Science Education, pioneering the concept of letting teenagers work in real laboratories.
Didi (Yedidya) Vardi (91) is the "elder of Israeli makers" and an inventor of clever machines. Following the loss of his son, Ron, in the First Lebanon War, he and his late wife founded the "Ron Vardi Center for Gifted and Outstanding Children." His basement workshop is filled with fascinating exhibits, from bicycles riding on tightropes to complex "Rube Goldberg machines."
The Dream Team
A chance meeting between these old friends birthed the "Children's Dreams" project: an orrery, a mechanical model of the solar system. The team includes electronics expert Yigal Lapid and laboratory technician Moti Moshitzki, with occasional contributions from industrial designer Hanan de-Lange and planetary scientist Oded Aharonson.
Vardi's workshop is a curated chaos of tools and prototypes. On one table sat a miniature amusement park made of Lego. "To me, it's a building material in every sense, so I assemble the bricks as I see fit," Vardi explained.
Accuracy vs. Illustration
The central debate was whether to prioritize scientific precision or the charm of simplicity. Solar system models face an inherent scale problem: if Earth is the size of a marble, Neptune would need to be hundreds of meters away. The group decided to expand the model's diameter to three meters to allow for better detail while keeping the planets in a single plane.
For Reshpon and Vardi, the computer is merely an auxiliary tool to visualize Kepler's laws, not a replacement for the physical experience. Their goal is to ignite curiosity, encouraging visitors to look up from their smartphones and be amazed. As Reshpon told me on my way out, "It was fun." That joy is the essence of their work—the drive to inspire wonder in a new generation.
