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| Great Icosicosidodecahedron |
- Vertex description: 6.3/2.6.5
- Faces: 52
- Edges: 120
- Vertices: 60
- External facelets: 1232
- Dual: Great icosacronic hexecontahedron
This model has 1232 external facelets to put together! It's a uniform
polyhedron, and so all the faces are regular, but intersecting. Can you pick
them out?! Each vertex is met by four faces, a triangle, a hexagon, a
pentagon, and finally another hexagon which crosses back through the first one.
Triangles and pentagons are not too hard to see, in yellow and blue
respectively, but the red hexagons are harder to identify, with different parts
of the hexagon visible from above and below.
This polyhedron is a faceting of the
truncated dodecahedron (meaning they share the same
vertex positions), and also shares its vertex arrangement with two other
uniform polyhedra, the great ditrigonal dodecicosidodecahedron, and the great
dodecicosahedron.
More than two months passed while making this model, but I was also working
on many other things during that time, so it could be made faster. The
completed model is very robust. It has an edge length of 14.5 centimetres, and
a diameter of almost 33 centimetres.
My half-finished model even made a
guest appearance on Australia's Today Show!
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Here's one of the nets printed by
Great Stella, showing 10 red parts
combined together.
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Put all these little pieces together from the nets, then glue them to
each other.
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You now have the flowery part seen here. Its outline is a regular 10/3
decagram. 12 of these are required.
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This is the same part upside-down. Inside the 10/3 decagram is a 10/2
decagram, ie two overlapping pentagons. One of the pentagons has
yellow edges. To add strength, I glued extra rectangles along the back
of these yellow edges. Glued to three consecutive existing tabs, that
is.
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These blue cups are then attached around the flower part. Then another
flower part can be added and so on. There is also a pair of yellow
triangles to go between each flower part, but I recommend you glue this
in place after the two flower parts have already been attached. It's
easier that way.
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Keep adding parts together! It may be hard to see in this picture, but
behind each yellow triangle-pair are small tabs from adjacent flower
parts that may also be glued together.
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Time for the infamous last part. Since I reinforced behind the yellow
edges, you can still flex the flower parts along those edges. Here we
see the last flower part being attached. It is first attached to one
of the blue cups, and since the flower can be folded along the yellow
edge, tweezers can still get in to secure these first tabs. Then
continue gluing for the remaining blue cups. Tweezers can't get in
now, but it still holds well. You can cut the hook off a coat hanger
and use it to reach inside and check that the tabs are together.
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Finally glue the last five yellow triangle-pairs in place. Here's the
completed model viewed down a 5-fold rotational symmetry axes.
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The view down a 3-fold rotational symmetry axes.
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The view down a 2-fold rotational symmetry axes.
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