The 2022 Sawyer Dialing Prize went to Frans Maes "for his creation of an introductory course on dialing, built on the idea of supervised self-study; for his successful multi-year running of that course in Europe; and for his inspiration of NASS’ development of a North American version.”

Fred presented Frans with an award certification, the traditional cash prize of $250 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.

Frans acknowledged the Sawyer Dialing Prize with two short video presentations. He thanked Fred and NASS for being awarded this year's Sawyer Dialing Prize saying "of course I'm honored and I'm flattered to be considered to join the league of so many great dialists that won the Prize before. I'm also proud to be the third Dutchman that was awarded this prize. Fer de Vries was the first awardee in 2000 and Hendrik Hollander in 2005." 25 years ago, Frans was looking for ways to embellish his backyard and someone suggested a sundial. "I didn't know anything of sundials, so I looked around for information and I found Waugh's book (Sundials - Their Theory and Construction) on my own bookcase... it made interesting reading and the sundial type that appealed to me was the analemmatic sundial... I liked most that you have to do something to read the time." He joined the Netherlands Sundial Society, and wrote about his sundial. Some years ago, while listening to presentation about a very interesting sundial, that included Babylonian and Italian hours, he hear someone ask: "Mister speaker, please can you explain what Italian hours are?...[and] I thought: what we do need is a form of internal education,...because if you know more of a subject, it makes it more interesting." Frans decided to write a course that included self assessment questions to force students not only to read the text, but to internalize the concepts. And a final submittal question "not necessarily a difficult question, but: no answer, no new lesson." Thus Frans Maes began writing lessons and sending them out to students. NASS has now used his material to create a similar course centered on North America, but still following the style of assessment questions and a final submitted question to proceed to the next lesson. Frans Maes, your dedication to educating people about sundials has now gone international.

https://www.artisanindustrials.com/world-of-sundials/spectra-sundial-nijmegen-netherlands.html

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Last Updated: 04 August 2026

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This year's Sawyer Dialing Prize went to Dr. Sara Schechner “for her career in education and conservation of our dialing heritage, and in particular for her authorship of Time of Our Lives – Sundials of the Adler Planetarium”.

Dr. Schechner is a historian of science, and in particular, of astronomical instruments. She is the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments at Harvard University. She is also a lecturer on the history of science at Harvard. Previously at the Adler Planetarium, she was pivotal in authoring and producing Time of Our Lives.

Fred presented Sara with an award certification, the tradional cash prize of $200 and a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.

She acknowledged the Sawyer Dialing Prize with a presentation on “Sundials That Tell Us More Than the Time”. In her talk, she examined sundials that indicate the political, religious, economic and geographic context in which they were created from the humble dial to the princely treasure. Sundials could be found embedded in eating utensils, swords, guns, or your writing kit. Early consumers wanted pocket sundials with style, much the way iphone and smartphone users today show off their technology. Cities specialized in the manufacture of different styled dials. Living in London you might have an equatorial from Augsburg or in Paris you would choose the Butterfield Dial. For the rich, dials were of silver and gold. The middle class might have brass and the lower class might use a shepherd’s dial out of paper and wood.

https://www.artisanindustrials.com/world-of-sundials/spectra-sundial-west-newton.html

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Last Updated: 04 August 2026

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