Agostino Ramelli, a 16th-century Italian military engineer, designed many Renaissance-era contraptions, including a geared wooden wheel with angled shelves, which allowed users to read several books at once. A group of undergraduate engineering students at Rochester Institute of Technology built two of them—one resides in the Melbert B. Cary Jr. Graphic Arts Collection at RIT’s Wallace Library, and the other at University of Rochester’s Rossell Hope Robbins Library. Each weighs about 600 pounds and has room for eight books.