Kenora Science Festival: Geometric Paper Craft

by Tammy Zebruck

The Douglas Family Art Centre has a fantastic new installation in the gallery called Solar Surface by Olafur Eliason.  It is a facetted glass orb lit from within and hangs in the Susan Glass and Arni Thorsteinson Lounge. 

In celebration of this wonderful new artwork and in partnership with the Science North Kenora Science Festival, we present this geometric globe puzzle craft, the template for which was developed by artist George Hart.

This art object can be decorated as you like it, printed on colourful card stock or clear film and act as an art object on its own, or be lit from within by a small flashlight or battery operated tea light.  Use your imagination!

You can download and print your own here.

Geometric Puzzle Instructions:

1. Print 5 copies of the template on card stock and cut out. Cut slits where marked. 
2. Make sure that you have 30 squares.
3. All squares must face the same direction when you put them together.  As a guide, have all pieces where you can see the template lines facing in. 
4. You might like to colour or otherwise decorate your puzzle.  You will need to consider that all the decorative surfaces must face out and decorate the correct side.
5. The squares have a short slit and a long slit.  The long slit slips into the short slit.  
6. The points of the squares face outside the sphere
7. Five squares will piece together to form a pentagonal hole. 
8. Build on this pattern by piecing the squares together with the corners facing out and maintaining the shape of a pentagon in the empty space.  The shape will come together as a spherical form.