Educational Mobile with Platonic Solids

Create an amazing mobile composed by the five platonic solids:

* Tetrahedron, with 4 faces each one an equilateral triangle.
* Hexahedron (aka cube), with 6 faces each one a square.
* Octahedron, with 8 faces each one an equilateral triangle.
* Dodecahedron, with 12 faces each one a pentagon.
* Icosahedron, with 20 faces each one a equilateral triangle again.

These and only these are regular solids with all regular faces, and the same number of faces meeting each vertex. They have an interesting history you can find here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid

I made this as a gift for my goddaughter. She is only a baby, but she stays fascinated with the moving shapes... she is gonna be smart!

So I think this instructable will be very profitable for kids, to learn how these solids are constructed and its properties. Also it's very easy, cheap and funny... let's go!

Step 1 Materials and tools

You will need:

* 5 sheets of cardstock with different colors, or white.
* One sheet of cardboard.
* String or thick thread.
* Glue.
* Scissors and rule.
* A printer to print the templates (or drawing tools if you desire them in another size).

Also you will find useful some tape, and a black marker only if you want the same finish effect I've done.

Comments

[LongToe]

Cool! I like that it's also something you can do with your kids.

I made something similar for my daughter. I tried to make it look like weird geometric fruit hanging from a tree.

[MoreThanRainbows]

Very nice idea. Would be great for a math teacher!