Gil Stubbs Magic Workshop for Seniors

Gil Stubbs Magic Workshop for Seniors

Gil Stubbs worked for many years at The Charles Stark Draper Labs, famous for their success with developing aeronautical instrumentation, also known as the ‘MIT Instrumentation Laboratory’; Stubbs recalls his role in the Apollo Program, he said, “my role in Apollo was in designing the digital autopilot controlling the gimbaled engine of the ‘Service Module’ booster that powered the Apollo vehicle on the way to the moon and supervising the design of the autopilot that controlled this engine on the way back to the earth. Each phase of Apollo had some unique technical problems to be solved for the very first time in this project.” To be more specific, Stubbs was responsible for the engineering the guidance and control of space vehicles. A gimbal is a pivoted support that allows the rotation of an object about a single axis. A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain independent of the rotation of its support- see how it’s vertical on this link: Gimbal-engine. On a ship, for example, the gyroscope, the ship’s compass and other electrical appliances use gimbals to keep them upright with respect to the horizon despite the ship’s pitching and rolling.

Given his background, one can only imagine the kind of meticulousness and detail Stubbs brings to the art of teaching magic; coaching high school students, seniors and even fellow magicians and members of the Society of Young Magicians, in the technical details of their sleight of hand techniques and more importantly, in the way they present their magic on stage and interact with their audience.

At every workshop, presentation and TV special Stubbs tailors learning magic, with a multiplicity of everyday items, such as napkins and rubber bands, to the needs and capabilities of his audience-seniors. Furthermore, Stubbs’ magic requires little to no manual dexterity. Each participant will be provided with over 100 pages of notes that describe each trick in detail and contain recommendations for further studies. The course will be taught at the Wellesley Community Center (where Wellesley meets), 219 Washington St., Wellesley from 1 to 2:30 P.M. on the first four Thursdays of October (Oct. 1, 8, 15 and 22), with a makeup date of October 29. Registration for this course ends on September 29. Students may register by calling 781-235-3961.