Polyhedra Construction Kit

When I was building the Valentine’s Dance decorations I thought a tab-A-in-slot-B type of construction would be cool for polyhedra. This idea has been stewing in my mind for a month or so, here is the prototype for a polyhedra construction kit. I will have triangles, squares and pentagons with common edge lengths so you can build whatever polyhedron you wish (although I think you are limited to convex polyhedra, because these pieces are chiral). I started with triangles because they’re the easiest to cut out. I used SymmetriSketch to draw what I thought would be an interlocking edge style. Then I printed it out and glued it (a glue stick works great) to some aluminum flashing, then cut out the aluminum with snips. This became a template for cutting out recycled HDPE from the sides of 4L milk jugs. Then I lightly scored where the folds would be.

I didn’t have enough faces to do a full icosahedron, but I managed to put 5 together. I had to use tape as the faces did not have positive locking as I hoped. That’s what prototypes are for, though. I then tried a tetrahedron, with tape on the outside. It really didn’t want to stay together.




For the next prototype, I am going to create a slot and tab on each edge instead, so there will be locking on both ends of the edge (right now these faces want to twist apart). Actually, V2 would look very similar to SlideTab (ok, exactly like). In fact, here is the PDF of what I had in mind. So, no need to do a V2 prototype, proceed directly to making the polyhedra.

Hmm, I wonder whether the laser cutter at the makerspace can cut HDPE?

Note to self: drink more milk.