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. VE Jitterbug; Tangent Toy Co Sausalito CA USA Bounce-Bak . Canada Crystal Structures 11-98 3D VRML Models; A Crowe; Institute Laue-Langevin Grenoble - France Cuboctaflex 09-98 The Orb Factory Halifax NS Canada Cuboctahedron Kit . Symmetrics, Inc Philadelphia PA USA D Delta Blocks 11-98 Octet; Hollister David . Integrity Designs; BFI sells Greenville NH USA Fast's Poly Page 11-98 Bruce Fast; University of Colorado . |
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Przybilla wanted a three dimensional model of some of the building-block shapes Mr. Fuller talks about, like the icosahedron, the octahedron and the tetrahedron. He built them from plastic spheres and while fiddling with the models realized that they could be spun. Well, anyway, spinning them is a nifty way to fritter away time in the office. Four tops, the three shapes above and a cuboctahedron come packed in a see-through plastic tube with a set of trading cards explaining the details of each shape in terms of faces, vertexes, etc. |
p a g e 11 Mad About Design patent 5,996,998 A few years ago a 35-year-old English teacher in New York wandered around New York's Chinatown and stumbled upon some small acrylic balls at a store called Industrial Plastics. Influenced by a childhood fascination with a geodesic jungle gym in his family's back yard and inspired by a lifelong fascination with Buckminster Fuller, the architect and futuristic thinker who invented the geodesic dome, Kurt Przybilla glued the balls together into different configurations and set them on his desk. One day he picked up one of his models and set it spinning. Though it had no pointed edge, it twirled like a top. Thus was born Przybilla's newly patented invention, the Tetra Top.
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p a g e 11 Mad About Design patent 5,996,998 A few years ago a 35-year-old English teacher in New York wandered around New York's Chinatown and stumbled upon some small acrylic balls at a store called Industrial Plastics. Influenced by a childhood fascination with a geodesic jungle gym in his family's back yard and inspired by a lifelong fascination with Buckminster Fuller, the architect and futuristic thinker who invented the geodesic dome, Kurt Przybilla glued the balls together into different configurations and set them on his desk. One day he picked up one of his models and set it spinning. Though it had no pointed edge, it twirled like a top. Thus was born Przybilla's newly patented invention, the Tetra Top. |
another models site: http://www.li.net/~george/virtual-polyhedra/paper-models.html