A project inspired by Steve Phelps’s Dissection tweet

I saw a neat tweet from Steve Phelps today:

Hinged Dissection: 2 Cubes to Rhombic Dodecahedron https://t.co/6Jc9p1bGzd pic.twitter.com/EvdADjnmqd

— Steve Phelps (@giohio) May 30, 2017

We’ve done a couple of projects on the Rhoombic Dodecahedron before – here are three of them:

Using Matt Parker’s Platonic Solid video with kids

A 3D Geometry proof with few words courtesy of Fawn Nguyen

Penrose Tiles and some simple 3D Variations

After seeing Phelps’s tweet I thought it would be fun to see if the boys remembered how to find the volume of the shape. So, I built one out of our Zometool set and asked them what they knew about the shape.

Here’s what my older son had to say:

Here’s what my younger son had to say:

I’m glad I saw Phelps’s tweet – it was fun to revisit some of these old projects occasionally. Also, it was a nice reminder of how easy it is to share 3d shapes with kids using a Zometool set.