Sculpture System No. 5 blocks
The Basic Piece
The basic piece in the system is a triangle. We hope to add other regular polygons shapes soon, should you with to build Archimedean polyhedra or other craziness. The design is creative commons share-alike so feel free to develop the pieces yourself, just let us know so we can put them up here!
To get from a triangle to the actual block, first cover the edge with circles. Remove the ones at the corners (this is essential for hinging) and make the rest of the edge a wave. This shape can be cut out with very little wastage, as the individual pieces tile together. However it is important to remember the thickenss of the material you are cutting. In our case we had 12mm plywood, and used a 6mm cutting blade. This left sufficient clearance for the hinge to work.
For the hinge we need to cut additional circles. These have a groove cut accross their diameter. The main tile also have grooves cut along the edges of the original triangle. The circles (six for each triangle) are screwed onto the tile so the grooves line up. This leaves room for a bar to connect two neighbouring tiles.
Designing a model
It can help to have a model before starting construction with the big shapes. For one thing once they are hinged together they are hard to take apart. They are also too large to easily work with (unless you make them small). Polydron is a useful tool for prototyping, and a fun toy as well!