Playing with Archimedean solids

For today’s math project we are doing a 2nd project from George Hart and Henri Picciotto’s Zome Geometry:

 

I asked the boys to pick three shapes from the section on Archimedean solids. Here’s what they picked:

Shape 1: A Truncated Icosahedron

You start with a triple length icosahedron:

They you truncate it:

Shape 2: A truncated dodecahedron

Start with a dodecahedron with sides made from two short blue struts and 1 medium blue strut:

Now truncate it:

Shape 3:

Truncated Octahedron;

Start with an octahedron with side lengths equal to 3 long green struts.

Now truncate: