Designing an constructing a polyhedron-based interactive object with a "surprise" inside. Outside, neutral toned wood; inside, colorful man-made and industrial materials.
Assignment concept based on Froebel Gifts. No glue allowed; joining methods must be mechanical.
My initial idea was to have a icosahedron whose triangular faces were all able to open up and reveal some new surprise, whether it be a color or texture or another tetrahedron inside, as well as each layer being able to open up and reveal some other interesting texture or color. In talking to my professor, he felt that this idea was going to be way too much work and probably would look too complex as well. I then settled on just having each layer opening up, having 3 distinct sections.
Halfway through I realized that all the tetrahedrons making up the structure of the icosahedron, which I assumed were all perfect tetrahedrons, were not, in fact, perfect. I had to make a new model, and figure out the new measurements for each triangle piece.
In addition to paper models, I made foam models to determine the angle at which I needed to bevel each wood face, as they have volume in comparison to paper and I wanted a pretty seamless fit and outside look. The bandsaw available to us at the wood shop was unable to cut the a the angle I needed so I decided to change to a thinner wood and hand sanded the bevels.
I had bought all my wood from Blick early on, but ran out towards the end of the project. Blick was out of stock on the basswood I was using previously, so I had to substitute for cherry with a redder tone. In the end, I think the mix of colors turned out nicely to give subtle interest to the uneventful outside appearance.
