Makedo Windball
Makedo Windball is a simple, yet unique geometry project. Basically,
all you do is assemble simple cardboards and turn them into a kind of art form.
The main idea behind the project is actually quite abstract; it shows that
there is no truly perfect sphere in this world. In addition, you can prove that spheres
are made out of squares, hexagons, or triangles.
Both Above: Makedo Giant
Windball, Makedo
Construction, via make.do
To begin, realize the following statement is true: There is no perfect
spherical or circular object in our universe, and there will never be. The
planets, raindrops, marbles, coins; none of these are perfectly rounded. You
may think that gravity is holding us back from a perfect sphere, affecting the
shape of the earth or of a raindrop, but even if there is no gravity, we still
wouldn’t have a perfect sphere. This can be proven by you zooming in far enough-
you will start seeing the edges of molecules. On Youtube, the user Veritasium
explains this in a beautiful way.
A Makedo windball is the best way to grasp this idea. You are taking
something that exists in square form and making it into a sphere. In the
beginning, you need 32 12-inches squares. When you connect all of them, you
will see some gaps in the shape of pentagons and triangles. To make that gap
smaller, you will need smaller squares to fill it in. Every time you make your
squares smaller, you will get closer to the perfect sphere. But keep this in
mind; you can make it as round as you can, but it will still have miniscule
holes , and it will not truly be a perfect sphere.
The Makedo Windball project also involves important fields for students
such as design, prototyping, recycling, construction, and, of course- fun!
A harmonograph is a drawing machine powered by the freedom of motion.
It draws endless attractive geometric designs and patterns, in other words,
harmonograms, using nothing but swinging pendulums, an oscillating pencil or
pen, and 3–4 minutes.
Making a harmonograph is one of my favorite projects to do with my students, especially those who are interested in design and engineering. Working on a harmonograph project with students is a fascinating process. It’s a great project to display science & engineering. For instance, while the pendulums are moving and pen/pencil is oscillating, you can see that the energy is transferred between the pen/pencil and the pendulum.
