Icosahedral Tiling Model


Following on from the “How do shapes fill space?” exhibit at the RSSE last year, the Science Museum accepted our offer of some of the zometool models. There were three classics, the 120-cell, 600-cell and 24-cell, but one more unique model. A patch of icosahedral tiling:

I then decided to build a second (larger) version, and being an idiot this week when I am packing to move house, seemed like a sensible move (look for evidence of packing below!). So I built this yesterday and it was picked up today. I do not know if/when it will be on display, but at least it is now in the collection. For the construction I made a 3d model on the computer and then copied it in zome. The outer shape is essentially a dodecahedron, however the tiles inside do not have this symmetry, so the model as a whole has no symmetries.

As it was sunny I was able to get some nice photos, like the first one I showed, but this is of most interest because of the great shadow that it made, so here is a close up: