Suspend your tension

My first attempt at a tensegrity structure.

I used this video as a guide to design my own

Pretty fun experiment :slight_smile: now its time to get all the super glue off my fingers :beers:

(edit: here is the file. it is setup for medium draftboard) Current scale and setup will require a piece of material ~8 1/4" X 4 1/4"
Suspend your tension Medium draft board
Order is
1=yellow - score
2=red - cut
3=green - cut
4=blue - cut
5= magenta - cut

For assembly first glue all the feet and the 2 support sections in place, use the score lines to align them properly.

I used a needle and thread for the support lines.

Next i found that doing the center connection first then attaching your lines for the outside to one ring solid worked the best . The lengths are not particularity critical as long as there is space between the 2 ends of the inner pieces.

Next feed the long ends through the other ring giving it a slight twist to line them up and have some way to clamp them lightly in place. You slowly take up slack on the 3 lines till you are happy with how level it is and the tension in the lines. I found that holding it roughly where you want to it be and clamping the lines gave a good starting point. be sure to check the tension in the lines in the middle to be sure you are not stressing things to much, it is a balancing act for sure. the piece will be pretty flexible so be gentle. I used super glue for all my connection to save time as well.

If you get around to making one post a pic below.

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Never seen this before. So interesting and cool.

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Yeah, me either! :sunglasses:

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@pubultrastar @Jules
This is the topic that inspired me to try this. super neat super fun and can be a mind bender at first.

Thx @gernreich

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Thanks, I must have missed that one. :grinning:

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happy cake day btw :slight_smile:

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Thank you! :blush:

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Happy Birthday, and thanks for all your contributions to the forum!

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Oh… thank you very kindly! (Anniversary of the day I first stumbled in.) :blush:

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Right, I forgot that’s what it meant. Haven’t seen much stumbling, you’re pretty surefooted around the GF :person_fencing: :smile:

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You just don’t see it…I face-plant pretty frequently. :smile:

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These tensegrity pieces make my brain itch…

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mind blown! This is so cool.

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I have always been fascinated with the paintings of Medieval tents that were very tall and had no center pole. There is much debate on this from early tentsegritty to artistic licence, but I am thinking they had it worked out.

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Very cool - nice to experiment.

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I.
Love.
That.

Just totally super cool. Partially because it’s So Simple. Thanks for sharing!!

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Hey not a problem, i’ll be posting the file above shortly if you wanted to make one. it is sized for 0.200" material atm so i might change the slot to a size common to proofgrade

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Awesome! Thank you!

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Should be above now i roughly sized it for medium draft board because i think a lot of ppl have it kicken around. hopefully it works out well. if there are any issues with the file please let me know and i can correct them when i get home later

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I made a the 3D printed one last month. It got tangled on transport to work. It has been an interesting brain teaser puzzle to untangle.

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