Make an Octahedron

Modular origami is a technique that can be used to build some pretty interesting and impressive models of mathematical objects. In modular origami, you combine multiple units folded from single pieces of paper into more complicated forms. The Sonobe unit is a simple example un ...more

These boxes are inspired by a comment from Imaatfal Avidya on a corkboard post on Platonic polyhedra from sonobe units. Imaatfal was commenting about how the cube and octahedron are related to each other. "There is something cool and special about the platonic solids—there is ...more

Learn how to make modular origami octahedron with 12 sonobe units. What you need: 12 square pieces of paper with size 9cm x 9cm. Duration: 7 minutes Difficulty: Easy Video: .

Using only a circle and straight lines, it's possible to create various aesthetic curves that combine both art and mathematics. The geometry behind the concentric circle, ellipse, and cardioid dates back centuries and is easily found in the world around us. From an archery tar ...more

Computer Science Professor Francesco De Comité has a fantastic gallery of mathematical images on Flickr. As part of this collection, he has a few hundred images of real or rendered polyhedra made out of paper or playing cards which he calls "slide togethers." These are constru ...more

It's Monday, which means once again, it's time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. I also thought that we'd try and create something known as an "Orderly Tangle" or "Polylink". This week we had a few submissions based off ...more

It's Monday, which means once again, it's time to highlight some of the most recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. I also thought we'd take a look at building a sliceform model of a hyperbolic paraboloid. Rachel Mansur put up two posts on her Modula ...more

Halloween is coming up, so many of you may have a need or desire to carve a pumpkin and turn it into a Jack O' Lantern. This week we are going to explore carving our pumpkins into interesting geometric shapes. In this post, we will carve the pumpkins into spherical versions of ...more

Richard Sweeney is an incredible artist whose body of work consists mainly of sculptures made from paper. His art is often related to origami, and much of his work is related to geometrical forms. I personally really love his modular forms in paper. Many of them are based off ...more

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most ...more

I spent the holiday weekend becoming fluent in the basics of modular origami. With practice, you can churn out the below models surprisingly quickly. Icosahedron, Octahedron & Cube. My first attempt at the octahedron can be seen here, which I found was actually a bit tougher t ...more

Oh, what fun you can have with a little math + a little origami. Bradford Hansen-Smith folds intricate geometric sculptures entirely from paper plates and is kind enough to offer a few HowTo's to get you started. Examples of his work below; scroll all the way down for the How ...more

Welcome to WonderHowTo's first Weekly Community Roundup! Each week we will be featuring the best projects from the community, as well as ongoing challenges and activities you can partake in. WonderHowTo is made up niche communities called Worlds, so if you've yet to join one, ...more

It's once again Monday, which means it's time to highlight some of the most recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. Since two of these posts were on polyhedral versions of M.C. Escher's tessellations, I thought we'd take a look at building a simple tes ...more

Math Craft admin Cory Poole posted instructions on How to Make a Cube, Octahedron & Icosahedron from Sonobe Units, plus some great complex models in his article, How to Make a Truncated Icosahedron, Pentakis Dodecahedron & More. These models use the standard sonobe unit and a ...more

WonderHowTo is made up niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. This week: A double exposure cell phone photog ...more

Last Thursday's post demonstrated how to Make Yin-Yang Pillow boxes, which were based on equilateral triangles and squares. The units for making these boxes were created by Phillip Chapman-Bell, who runs an amazing origami blog and has a spectacular flickr photostream. Using t ...more

It's another Monday, which means it's once again time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. Additionally, I thought we'd take a look at the process of stellation and make some stellated polyhedra out of paper.Rachel Mansur of ...more

Last week Math Craft admin Cory Poole demonstrated how to make three of the platonic solids from Sonobe units: the cube, the octahedron, and the icosohedron; but where was the dodecahedron? I was pushed to find out how to make a sonobe dodecahedron from this beautiful picture ...more

The initial idea for this project was to use magnets in the tips of the stellated octahedron and the intersections of the metal rings for either suspension or even a sort of weightless rotation. This turned out to be a bit too ambitious considering I'm working with found mirro ...more

WonderHowTo is made up niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. This week: A nostalgia-themed cell phone photo ...more

WonderHowTo is made up niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. Hacking, crafting, mining & more… just another ...more

After Cory Poole posted some great Escher snowflakes, and Cerek Tunca had the great idea of using it as a base for a tetrahedron, well, I just had to give it a go. I will post a few more pictures and variants later (I think this was what Cerek was envisaging—if not let me know ...more

Each curved module replaces the equilateral triangle of a simple octahedron. Inspired and copied from Cory's post with original artwork by Richard Sweeney

My first attempt with the sonobe unit! I'm now addicted. I'll be spending the holiday folding. Instructions here.

DRUM! Magazine — the leading magazine for drummers and percussionists worldwide — has announced the biggest drumming event ever to take place in Northern California. On Friday, August 13, drummers will descend on the San Jose Repertory Theatre in the heart of Silicon Valley to ...more