Lego ball (approx. 20 cm diameter): a rhombic triacontahedron

[Hanso]

Hi all,

For one of my projects I needed a Lego ball. But not a massive one, it should be light weight. Searching the internet, I found a Pinterest site containing all sort of Lego spheres: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/530369293592753126/.

Based on the black and red rhombic triacontahedron (don't worry if you don't know that this is the official name of the sphere ;-), I made a green version. I included the 1x6 bow elements (41762) which makes the sphere almost perfectly round, making the ball roll easily on a floor.

A photo of the real one:

I created the ball also in LDD and had it rendered by the application that just had been released Stud.io (you can read more about this at Bricklink: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/article_view.page?id=1009). The result is really nice (if I hadn't made this picture myself, I would have thought that it was a real photo):

I made a small Youtube movie so you can see that the ball rolls really good:

Enjoy,

Hans

Edited December 18, 2016 by Hanso

[quilkin]

Very good - I like this; I have built similar constructions but not so round! I can't quite count how many parts needed - is that 60 of each (curved slope / hinge / clip etc)?

It's not really 'Technic' though so maybe better in the 'special' forum (sculpture & art)

[Hanso]

6 hours ago, quilkin said:

Very good - I like this; I have built similar constructions but not so round! I can't quite count how many parts needed - is that 60 of each (curved slope / hinge / clip etc)?

It's not really 'Technic' though so maybe better in the 'special' forum (sculpture & art)

Thanks, quilkin. And you're right, I should have posted in the 'special forum'. Do you know if I can move this thread?

With respect to the numbers: there are 30 rhombus shapes (all exactly the same), see picture below:

Therefore, you either need 120 pieces or 60 pieces. I chose this color because the elements were affordable and I needed a color that will be picked up by a Pixycam camera (and this green color works just fine). I've bought the elements at two stores at Bricklink, including shipping costs it was about 25 euros in total.

 

[Hanso]

Thanks Jim for moving the thread to the correct forum.

Some more information about this shape can be found at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhombic_triacontahedron.

More Lego versions of other builders (the first is the original version I used as example for my version):

Regards, Hans

Edited December 19, 2016 by Hanso