Leonardo Da Vinci Sphere

I saw this dome online and was inspired to make one myself albeit smaller in scale. The geometry on this project made my head spin for a while trying to figure out all the angles in Sketchup but I finally triumphed. I laser cut the holes in popscicle sticks and engraved them A & B. Then assembled with zip ties…lots of zip ties! All in all the project took less than a week from starting the design to finishing the assembly.

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Very cool - is it rigid or does it have flex (beyond the flex you can force on a popsicle stick)?

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The popscicle sticks are forced to bend slightly during assembly. A couple struts broke but most held the bending force just fine. The finished sphere is quite rigid though probably not as strong as a true geodesic dome. I like the pattern this creates especially with the shadows from the light fixture.

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Here’s a similar build on left with no connectors:

From here:

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So intricate! Makes for a very nice lampshade.

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That came out great. Nice work!

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pretty cool. but liking the cat stairs too.

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