Vol. 06: Building Tensegrity Models
Make a "needle tower" sculpture from dowels and elastic cord that seems to defy the laws of physics.
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» MAKE: AMENDS Errata for This Article
Correction for page 106
In the Tensegrity project in Volume 06, the Materials List suggests using 5 meters of stretch cord. Most readers recommend buying at least 9 meters, or 2 spools of stretch cord.
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Showing messages 1 through 3 of 3.
- Building stronger tensegrities
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Fullers' work, and tensegrities in particular, have been a hobby since grade school, and when I saw the article in Make I had to get a copy. It motivated me to dig my stuff out of the closet.
Years ago I made an icosahedron of steel springs and aluminum tubing. Later, I substituted several heavy-duty rubber bands for each spring. Aluminum struts can be strung tightly enough to reverberate for quite a while after being hit or bounced.
One of my hobbyist goals has been to get past soda-straw/wooden dowel/rubber-band construction, yet remain with off-the-shelf components. Recently, motivated by the Make article, I revisited that goal and devised a method of making adjustable connectors so that nearly invisible fishing line could be used without knots or rubber bands. Aesthetically, it's a work in progress, but it still looks cool. An explanation of the revamped icosahedron model is on my blog at unityplural.blogspot.com.
Posted by jerseyboy on January 03, 2008 at 12:17:53 Pacific Time
- tensegrity in cubeland
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I've gotten a lot of inquisitive comments from people who have seen my sculpture after I moved it to my cube.
Here's what mine looks like:
http://flickr.com/photos/33689749@N00/sets/72157594168145120/
The funniest thing is when people realize that it's stretchy, compress it like a spring, and see how high it will bounce.
I've got a basic 3-rod tendule next to it, and I think just about every visitor to my cube picks it up to play with it.Posted by drinkumbrella on June 16, 2006 at 21:54:46 Pacific Time
- Missing peices
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The article has left out the fact that you need two (2) rolls of the Stretch Magic cord.Posted by hlumbard on June 11, 2006 at 11:23:58 Pacific Time
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Showing messages 1 through 3 of 3. |
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