Platonic Solids

[Don]

Hey, Guys - Here's a challenge, who can be the first to make a complete set of the Platonic Solids? For an explantion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid

Hey, Will, how about giving us the math angles and I'll see about working on this.

dawjr

[Will1987]

Hey Don,
Damn you've had that post up for a while, shoulda logged on more often. How ya been? With the platonic solids I'm way ahead of you (well maybe not way ahead but on the same wavelength and one platonic solid ahead). I'm just about to post pics (hopefully today, just gotta shoot down to the store and get some larger hinges for the lid) the finished dodecahedron chest - painted and with handles and the whole deal. Next up is an icosahedron which I've just put together a cardboard model of. I've got all the angles but hey, I thought this was my idea :). Copycats! no its fine actually go crazy. I guess that you, Don, could be considered my "design consultant."
Its easy to find the info about all the solids online, just google platonic solids (wolfram math world and wikipedia are good sources). Dihedral angle means the angle between two faces of the polyhedron, so just divide that in half and thats your mitre.

- It's looking like to make the icosahedron workable as a container that you can open up, more than one face is going to have to open as a lid. It's composed of equilateral triangles. So my thought is to have one edge of one polygon (face) hinged and then hinged to two others. However those edges would close with magnets. So I was wondering if you know where to find magnets that could be somehow morticed into the mitred edges (might be a tad tricky) or if you have any thoughts on that.

by the way, the ratio of length of one side of the eqilateral triangle in the icosahedron to the height is: 4 (side lenght)/6.75 (height from bottom polygon to parallel top polygon). I know it seems like it would be more, right? but the fact that there's so many angles means that one face takes up more than half the height even though there's 20 faces.

Stay tuned for the finished dodecahedron pics (and a few questions to help me move beyond the prototype stage).

see ya,
Will

[Will1987]

Actually don, I was wondering if you (and other readers) could let me go ahead and build the other solids first. I dont know if it sounds babyish but it takes a little bit of the fun out of it for me when you build these things before I get a chance to. Then after I make them and they come out right you can go ahead and do it. Any tips are welcome though, but even there Ill probably have more relevant questions after I try building it.

thanks a lot,
Will:D

[Don]

Okay, Will - it's all you (nobody has jumped forward anyway) I know what you are mean. Looking forward to seeing you accomplish this.

You can get almost any magnet you want from McMaster-Carr, google them - great place.

dawjr