Slide-Together Model Made with Triangles

George Hart, the king of polyhedra-inspired sculpture, created models that are easy to build by sliding together simple shapes.

Steps

1. Cut twenty of these triangles from card stock. Cut the slits in the triangles. Use five different colors for an interesting model.
   
2. Slide triangles together at the slots. Start by intersecting one of each color in a ring around a pentagonal hole.
   
3. Continue sliding on new triangles to form more pentagonal spaces. For a challenge, try to figure out a color scheme that will ensure that each pentagonal hole is surrounded by a triangle of each color.
   
4. Refer to the picture to see what our end result will look like.
   

Notes

• It has all the edges of five intersecting cubes.
  
• If the pentagonal and triangular gaps were filled in, it would be a small ditrigonal icosidodecahedron
  
• The triangles in this model are the same as those in the great ditrigonal icosidodecahedron. However, the latter has large intersecting pentagons as well.
  
• Images of the two polyhedra were created by Robert Webb's Great Stella software
  

Links

• Slide together models are described on George Hart's website.
• George Hart wrote a paper about using slide-together models in the classroom.