Compound of 5 Cubes

It seems completely counterintuitive that one should be able to arrange 5 cubes in an intersecting arrangement where every vertex is equally spaced from its nearest neighbour. Yet completely possible and the result is a Compound of 5 Cubes. This papercraft model is a model of exactly that shape, with each different cube carefully shaded so that it can be discerned from the other four cubes.

Download the PDF of the patterns, and create your own papercraft paper model. Simply print out the patterns on 160g Plain White Paper (normal paper is 80g – so twice as thick). Then you can score the folds, cut out the patterns, and finish by folding and gluing them.

Here is a gallery of some photos of the finished product;

Here is a video of the building of this model:

To learn more about the Compound of 5 Cubes see this Wikipedia page for Compound of 5 Cubes.

Dodecahedron Frame (Riveted Wood & Steel)

This papercraft model is of one of the 5 platonic solids, ie. a regular pentagonal dodecahedron. In its name, the word “regular” refers to the fact that each face is a regular polygon (in which the edges are of equal length and equal angle from each other. The word “pentagonal” refers to the fact that each of those regular faces is a pentagon or, in other words, has 5 sides. The word “dodecahedron” means that the form has 12 flat faces. “Dodeca” means 12 in ancient Greek and “hedron” comes from the word polyhedron.

For an additional spin, this model has been hollowed out to add a layer of difficulty.

Download the PDF of the patterns, and create your own papercraft paper model. Simply print out the patterns on 160g Plain White Paper (normal paper is 80g – so twice as thick). Then you can score the folds, cut out the patterns, and finish by folding and gluing them.

Here is a gallery of some photos of the finished product;

Here is a video of the building of this model:

To learn more about the regular pentagonal dodecahedron see this Wikipedia page for the dodecahedron.

Octahedron-Cube Duality

This Octahedron-Cube Duality Paper model demonstrates the dual relationship between the two platonic solids the cube and the regular octahedron. That is to say that:

  1. each face on the cube corresponds to a vertex on the octahedron and conversely,
  2. each vertex on the cube corresponds to a face on the octahedron.

In this example, the octahedron is larger than the cube so the cube is inside the octahedron.

Download the PDF of the patterns, and create your own papercraft paper model. Simply print out the patterns on 160g Plain White Paper (normal paper is 80g – so twice as thick). Then you can score the folds, cut out the patterns, and finish by folding and gluing them.

To learn more about the duality of the cube and regular octahedron see this Wikipedia page for the compound of a cube and octahedron.

Cube-Octahedron Duality

This Cube-Octahedron Duality Paper model demonstrates the dual relationship between the two platonic solids the cube and the regular octahedron. That is to say that:

  1. each vertex on the cube corresponds to a face on the octahedron and conversely,
  2. each face on the cube corresponds to a vertex on the octahedron.

In this example, the cube is larger than the octahedron so the octahedron is inside the cube.

Download the PDF of the patterns, and create your own papercraft paper model. Simply print out the patterns on 160g Plain White Paper (normal paper is 80g – so twice as thick). Then you can score the folds, cut out the patterns, and finish by folding and gluing them.

To learn more about the duality of the cube and regular octahedron see this Wikipedia page for the compound of a cube and octahedron.