My mother just bought my daughter a box of linkable shapes. At the same time, I got knocked down by a nasty cold and found myself too ill to work. My daughter never stood a chance as I spent a day learning how to create models with them.
(Click on the pictures for higher resolution images)
The shapes are all identical (though colours vary). When combined as below they 'tile' the plane.
But they are very flexible and can be contorted easily. A model's appearance can depend as much on the moulding of the shapes as their linkage.
The structure of the links in the two images below is identical, but in one case the
result is a cylinder and in the other something approximating a truncated octahedron. In addition to the obvious interconnections demonstrated above. The plasticity of the shapes allow
for various kinds of overlapping joints consisting of between three and six links. The small (approximately spherical) models below have a similar structure
except that in the second model the interconnections have been overlapped. Using these various primitive linking operations, a multitude of Platonic and
Archimedian solids. My most ambitious model at the end of the day was this set
of rounded tetrahedra composed around a regular pentagon. And here's one for Cooking Capsules.
Single Link
Plane Tiling
Link Flexibility
Cylinder
Trucated Octahedron
Triangular Joint
Pentagonal Joint
Hexagonal Joint
Non-overlapped Joints
Overlapped Joints
Cooking Capsule
