Isohedron Tensegrity

by BevCanTech in Living > Decorating

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Isohedron Tensegrity

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An isohedron is made up of 20 equilateral triangles. This one glows in the dark after ultraviolet light has been shined onto it. 

The reason I made it was to see if a string network supporting a Isohedron Tensegrity could be tightened by replacing pencil struts with longer ones, rather than tightening the individual string connections.

Supplies

6-8 coloured pencils

Glow in the dark wool

12 washers

1 Ballon

Tape

Attach Pencils to a Ballon

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Sharpen both ends of 6 pencils.

Partially blow up a ballon to about 5 inches in diameter. Attach the pencils to the ballon with some tape.

Place a washer over one end of a pencil and tie some short lengths of glow in the dark wool to it.

Make a Network

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Join more lengths of wool between the washers on the ends of the pencils. Continue connecting a total of 60 pieces of string to washers fitted on the end of the pencils to create an isohedron shape. 

Deflate and remove the balloon. You will likely find the isohedron is not so tight. To tighten it, go around and replace some pencils with slightly longer ones. You will probably only need to replace 2-3 pencils to tighten up the isohedron.

Make It Glow

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Shine ultraviolet light on the string and watch it grow in the dark.