You can trade time with money. You are probably wanting to prove the operation of a telescope. With this, you can either buy a mirror and build the rest of the telescope or go so far as to make your own mirror. There are formulas for silvering a mirror that your chemistry dept. at school will love to help you with (the chemicals can explode under incorrect procedures) and that will get you points with the teacher. If you go that route, I would suggest that you do a small mirror, about 2.5" or 3". For a mirror of this size, you can use plate glass from the glass store. A 1/4" piece of glass is thick enough for the mirror. There are a number of sites that are out in webland but a quick look from Zdunic's start point quickly found http://users.uniserve.com/~victorp/ which shows all about the process of making the primary mirror. Have fun with the project. You will in the end, make something that you can impress the girls with - you can show them the stars.