Triangle week

This week is "triangle week" in my wife's pre-K class and I was looking for something to make out of triangles that they would think was neat. I've always been a fan of Buckminster Fuller and thought his geodesic domes were awfully cool...I guess it's the hippie coming back out in me...so a small dome seemed like a good idea.

Originally I was going to make it out of cardboard and stick them together with Mr. McGroovy's Box Rivets but couldn't easily find sheets of cardboard that were both large enough and thick enough. So the next option was to cut them out of plywood using the ShopBot...always a great choice. Fastening them together was an easy decision...use cable ties like putting together a stitch and glue boat!

The ShopBot made quick work of cutting the pieces and drilling tie holes in 3 sheets of 1/4" luaun and a scrap of 1/2" Baltic Birch, and the kids in the class painted the triangles yesterday. This morning my friend Robert, my son Jimmy, and I put it together in their classroom. For a while it was like wrestling with a jellyfish but when the last couple of triangles were added it stiffened right up. The kids played in it all day and it held up!

Robert and I have built a bunch of stitch and glue boats together and we started thinking that this might be a neat way to build a shop or shed or maybe emergency housing...tie it together and then tab the outside seams in a couple of spots and fillet the inside seams. Then remove the ties and fiberglass all the outside seams. The "gluing" part of stitch and glue isn't much fun but it goes pretty quick and you would end up with a pretty slick building for not a whole lot of money.

Here are a couple of pictures...you can find more on Flickr