are a fun way to use up the excessive quantities of old business cards that my friends give me (which, of course, they are giving me because of my propensity to fold them into things – a most excellent cycle).
I was most recently given a box of “AMA Capital” business cards and attempted to make as many of the Archimedean solids as possible from them. Several of these can be seen in the photo of my exhibit at EBOC.
I already knew how to make cuboctahedra and icosidodecahedra, as seen here, but I didn’t know how to make any of the other Archimedean solids.
Thus far, I have come up with modules and designs for the truncated tetrahedron, truncated cube, truncated cuboctahedron, rhombicuboctahedron, truncated icosahedron, and rhombicosidodecahedron. I wouldn’t be surprised if some (or even all) of these designs were examples of parallel invention, but I haven’t seen any of them elsewhere as yet, and I certainly had a fun time coming up with and building them, which is probably the important part.
Rhombicuboctahedron and Truncated Tetrahedron
Rhombicuboctahedron and Truncated Tetrahedron
Truncated octahedron, truncated icosahedron, and truncated tetrahedron
Truncated octahedron, truncated icosahedron, and truncated tetrahedron
often have “small friends” with octahedral symmetry.
Icosahedral and octahedral versions of ‘Seeing Stars’
Here are the “small friends” for Seeing Stars and the chocolate wrapper sculpture that I posted earlier. Super cute, although I must admit that I like icosahedral symmetry a bit better in general (perhaps why the other sculptures were made first ^^)
Octahedral Seeing Stars Sculpture
Octahedral Seeing Stars Sculpture
Icosahedral and octahedral versions of ‘Seeing Stars’
Octahedral Chocolate Wrapper Structure
Octahedral Chocolate Wrapper Structure
Octahedral and Icosahedral Chocolate Wrapper Sculptures
of some of the random geometric sculptures around my house are startlingly pretty and geometric themselves.
The sculptures that have been shadowed are a tensegrity sculpture of (roughly) a truncated icosahedron made out of Tensegritoy, a Frabjous sculpture designed by George Hart, and a Star Cage (6 interlocking stars) designed by Akio Hizume.
are a ridiculously fun (and sadly expensive) desk toy. I’ve been challenging myself to make as many of the Archimedean and Platonic solids of unit side length as possible.
So far I have made 6/13 Archimedean solids* and 4/5 Platonic solids**. Can you make any of the ones that I haven’t figured out yet?
* the rhombicosidodecahedron, rhombicuboctahedron, truncated octahedron, cuboctahedron, truncated cuboctahedron, and truncated icosidodecahedron
