Math Craft Features
News: Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Intricate Sonobe Art of Meenakshi Mukerji
Last week Math Craft admin Cory Poole demonstrated how to make three of the platonic solids from Sonobe units: the cube, the octahedron, and the icosohedron; but where was the dodecahedron? I was pushed to find out how to make a sonobe dodecahedron from this beautiful picture (below) that Rachel Mansur posted on the corkboard.
Math Craft Monday: Community Submissions (Plus Tiling with Coins)
It's Monday, and once again it's time to highlight some of the community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. In addition, I thought we'd take a look at having fun with the geometrical properties of polygons and circles by using one of the best circles I know, the penny.
News: 30 Square Sliding Modular Origami
Cory's post with instructions and templates Here's my first attempt at the 30 squares model. I needed to be a little bit more careful in the measuring and cutting as not everything matches up - but it is still a really pleasing shape.
News: Rotating Mirror Stellated Octahedron
The initial idea for this project was to use magnets in the tips of the stellated octahedron and the intersections of the metal rings for either suspension or even a sort of weightless rotation. This turned out to be a bit too ambitious considering I'm working with found mirror and hot glue. So instead, I scrapped the magnets and went with simply mounting it on a skateboard bearing so it can freely rotate and not be bound to the base.
News: TUVWXYZ Star Model
So beautiful... I'm looking forward to tackling this one: Via David Petty:
News: Modular Origami
Cory has posted some great picture of Father Magnus' intersecting cubes (the great man is holding one in his right hand) - well the above is what happens when five tetrahedra intersect. It is modular origami and made from just ten sheets of origami paper. technically in a folding sense it is easy - but putting it together is mind-warping
News: M.C. Escher Square Tessellation Ornaments
Imatfaal's awesome post on Escher's tessellations on Polyhedra reminded me of some ornaments I made this summer. I made some of Escher's square tessellations onto cubes and then reprojected them onto spheres. I actually used a 60 sided Deltoidal hexecontahedron since that net is fairly easy to fold and looks pretty round.
News: Orderly Tangle Earrings
I decided I would make those earrings I alluded to in Monday's Post on orderly tangles. I had to shrink the templates down so that the triangles are about 2 cm on a side. I used 110 lb cardstock and and painted them using metallic leafing paint in gold, silver, copper, and brass. I would put up a tutorial, except I think that this project would be too frustrating for most people. All I can suggest is that you make the orderly tangle of 4 triangles multiple times and just keep shrinking the si...
News: The Platonic Solids Get Trippy
If you haven't participated in this week's Math Craft project on the platonic solids, maybe this will inspire you to do so.
News: Albrecht Dürer, the Father of Polyhedral Nets
Did you know that you can "write" in polyhedra? I just stumbled across a $24.99 font called Divina Proportione. Created by Brazilian graphic designer Paulo W, the typeface is constructed with beautiful geometric renderings by the famous Renaissance printmaker Albrecht Dürer.
News: Folding Everlasting Gobstoppers
I came across this Dutch site called "Wat Maakt Suzette Nu?", which featured a project created with Math Craft instructions for modular origami. Suzette, the creator, did an incredible job in terms of craftsmanship and color...
News: Watch Out Nemo! Fish-Shaped Gears
I built this the other day from those weird gear plans from Clayton Boyer.
News: Polyhedron Animation
Below, polyhedron animation test #1. The model was folded using Cory Poole's modular origami tutorial.
News: My Origami Christmas Tree
Based off these instructions posted up by Justin Meyers of Scrabble World. I made it out of Glossy Photo Paper so it is really shiny.
News: A Compound of Two Cubes with a Minecraft theme
Compound of two cubes with a Minecraft theme.
News: Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: Christmas Chaos
If you take two flat mirrors and place them front to back and look at them, you can see an infinite number of reflections. While this is a self-replicating pattern and can be somewhat mesmerizing, it isn't anywhere as interesting as looking at the chaotic scattering of light that can occur between 3 or 4 spheres.
News: Escher Tessellated Polyhedra
After Cory Poole posted some great Escher snowflakes, and Cerek Tunca had the great idea of using it as a base for a tetrahedron, well, I just had to give it a go. I will post a few more pictures and variants later (I think this was what Cerek was envisaging—if not let me know!)
News: Nice Range of Modular Models
A source of inspiration... Models folded and photographed by Michal Kosmulski. There are only two sets of instructions on the site, but they are very well done. I wish he had covered more of the models. Here are a few I would like to tackle (I'll admit my eyes are bigger than my plate):
News: Curved Modular Octahedron
Each curved module replaces the equilateral triangle of a simple octahedron. Inspired and copied from Cory's post with original artwork by Richard Sweeney
News: Curves With Staight Lines
Much more complex than I had to make it- that's why I posted it. I think it looks cool...
News: Cyriak Harris' Fractal Freakiness
I'm sure many of you have already seen this, but being Halloween and mathematically inspired, I thought I'd dig up an old favorite for those who may have missed it. Original post with quote from Cyriak here. More fractal hands: Tim Hawkinson's "Fruit" Series
News: An Octahedron Made with Sonobe Units
My first attempt with the sonobe unit! I'm now addicted. I'll be spending the holiday folding. Instructions here.
News: The Venn Piagram
Someone made this awesome pie, or is it two, in the shape of the standard two circle Venn Diagram.
News: New Colour Scheme Pentakis Dodecahedron
So I really like the new colour scheme. This sonobe pentakis dodecahedron uses twelve colours; one for each face.
News: My Sonobe Jasmine Dodecahedron
Here's my Sonobe Jasmine Dodecahedron built from Imatfaal's instructions.
News: Origami Panda
So, this is a type of origami that is called golden venture origami. This type of origami is made of hundreds to thousands of little intersecting triangles. This took about 2-3 three hours, the picture is pretty bad because it was taken at school with a cell camera. But I hope this inspires you to make some of your own! This type of origami is in essence very easy to make but takes a lot of time and effort to make. However if you get really good at it, you can do it without even looking at ab...
How To: Anybody Know How to Make This?
Via gurmeet.net
News: Bird's Eye Maple Veneered Papercraft Dodecahedron
I bought a sheet of ultra thin 1 ply Birdseye Maple veneer the other day and decided that It would look beautiful as a dodecahedron. I used some glue to attach it to cardstock and then cut it out as the net of a dodecahedron. I used a X-acto knife to lightly etch the fold lines on both the cardstock and the veneer so that it would fold crisply. I glued it all together using superglue. This post shows the net and how to fold it.
News: Beautiful Knot Sculptures
NYC based sculptor Meghan Forsyth created these beautiful knot sculptures in 2010. Can you identify which knots are depicted?
News: Fractal Pecan Pie
Following the pattern of fractal goodies, I found this great article on making a giant fractal pecan pie. Seems like you'll need some dedicated pecan pie enthusiasts (shouldn't be hard to find) to help you out!
News: Icosahedron + Cube!
It makes a nice little snow man hehe
News: Torolf Sauermann
A beautiful object by artist Torolf Sauermann; see more of his math art here.
News: Beyond Infinity Immersive Installation
Combine a bunch of fractal objects with mirrors and and lights and the ability to walk around inside and you get something like the image below.
Penny Polyhedra: Cube
Not the best picture, but will do. More will be coming!
MO MATH: Museum of Mathematics
The Museum of Mathematics, curated by George Hart, will be opening in 2012. Here are a few activities you can check out in the meantime.