Home Made Telescope?

Saw a program on the Discovery Channel a few years ago on two astronomers in
San Francisco who take telescopes out into the city and offer passers by a
look at what's in the viewer.

The instruments they used were home-made, and they showed people interested
enough to join their astronomy club how to make these.

As far as I can recall the 'barrel' of the telescope was more-or-less
irrelevant. They used the cardboard rolls newsprint comes on for these.

The mirrors were the tricky bit (and I imagine there are some smiles
breaking out at this point). I think they made them from blocks of glass.
The program showed them at work, but I can't remember what was involved.
(Rolling one piece of glass on another, possibly.)

Then I've read somewhere else - I think - that the really, really tricky bit
is your telescope's tracking mechanism. I don't think the home-made
instruments tackled this. (Seem to recall seeing that KStars - which comes
with my Linux distribution - can be used for controlling a telescope).

Does this vague recollection of mine ring a bell with anyone here? At
present I ask out of mere inquisitiveness, but something like this could be
of great value in a country like South Africa, where the vast majority of
the people can only dream of going into astronomy (even with "cheap"
equipment like binoculars). Even less-than-perfect instruments could be
acceptable in these circumstances.

(And now I think of it, Newton's original reflecting telescope probably
didn't have servo motor control, either).