Geodesic dome kit

This was a kit I created for visiting school children to assemble at The National Building Museum. It's meant to be easy to understand, collaborative, easy to tear down and clean up. If you are interested in having your school group build this geodesic dome at the National Building Museum, please visit their website for information about how you can sign up to participate.

This Instructible will show how to fabricate the parts to make a 6 1/2 foot tall dome that is rigid enough to support approximately 50lbs from the apex.

Step 1 Tools and materials

Tools:
chop saw
table saw
drill press
belt sander
3/8" drill bit
1/4" drill bit
machinists vice
olfa snap off knife and extra blades
2 disposable paint brushes

Materials
3/4" square, 1/16" thick wall extruded aluminum
3/8" thick rubber sheet (8568K536 - $51.07/ linear foot x 36" wide)
26x 2 1/2" long 1/4" lag bolts
260x 1 1/2" long 1/4" lag bolts
26x wide 1/4" washers
26x 1/4" wing-nuts
red and blue paint

Comments

[Haihiru]

I luv this. How many feet of the Neoprene rubber do you need? I can't find it mentioned.

[mydian_nightshade]

Good catch: It's a lot - 26 hubs x 2 shapes per hub = 52 shapes which are about 6" square each. That's a minimum of 13 square feet, but you'll need to see what width rubber you can get & then do a full layout of the pieces before you order. Cutting the rubber is very unfun, but necessary for it to be durable, reusable, & safe for school children.

[rapidprototyping]

I made one these using 2 X 2's and 3/4 plywood scrape from construction site I had a jig saw a drill press and couple wrenches is all it took. I had just the old fashion miter box and hand saw then (1980) the 2X2 where better off being bought in batches I cut all the pieces by hand a chop saw would make fast work of this as all the pieces you just replicate the cuts over and agin till there all cut out drill them all out on drill press with positioning jig can't go wrong except for saw dust keep it out of the jigs. I used wing nuts and bolts the wing nuts were un-nessary by the way. I sold mine and painted it after erection it was sold as greenhousew for $150 we had good party firt time it went up we got it wrong thats embarassing but did go up second time no mistakes. These might make neat tent in the back yard or green house possibly. good job on being inventive with materials. Aluminum is always superior to wood with routers these days all the corners could be rounded over and sanded to make them smooth. I think a geodesic tent ought have sewn gesodesic cover same principle patterns pieces a tipi always gets attention a dome that can have a couple cots inside now the saving on motel rooms would pay for that in short order grandpa really doesnt mind camping out in the back yard does he if not him the kids will volenteer too for sure geodesic fort could be great adventure in the out back

[geraldvirieux]

Hi everyone this is a great instructable, does any one know of any company that sells hubs for geostatic domes I have looking on the net but can not see any firm selling them maybe the are to specialized as the hub is very complicated to fabricate as I was thinking about building a green house and would like to use glass in the design as the panels. most of the designs you see cover the dome with plastic

[rapidprototyping]

there are several one cast them as a hub thats the shape of a soda can with squares missing every so often in these openings a knuckle fits and inside the casting a pin like a bolt is added to hold things together. the struts are cut to length and bored with hole through a plate that fits on either side of dimensional lumber. bolts hold the flage to the strut on its ends a loop is formed that accepts the bolt there by holding the strut to the hub. did you try using hub and strut as your search term.

[Seth Black]

"what would happen if you replaced all the red struts with rope?"

I'm reasonably certain that you'd never be able to erect the dome, if you replaced all of the red struts with rope.

It might be interesting to swap out a select few of the red struts with rope.  Too many though, and it would simply not be able to support itself.

[nnygamer]

Looks like my house :) Great instructable

[dregawd]

If anyone is interested in building one, you can do it very cheap and easy. I was gonna do an instructable but I am a bit of a procrastinator. all you need is a hot glue gun, scizzors and bamboo scewers and go to desertdomes.com and check out the dome calculator. And you dont have to contact anyone :)

[mydian_nightshade]

yup - desert domes has a really good calculator for figuring out strut length.

I only mean for people to contact the museum if they want to us it in a school program. I don't want to feel like I'm taking patrons (and money) away from a place that I care about. Just reinforcing the non-commercial aspect of the license :)

[theRIAA]

awesome writeup. I might make one one day. don't they usually have all the tubes the same length?

[theRIAA]

what would happen if you replaced all the red struts with rope?

[dregawd]

no, the length of struts vary slightly, by design, but the connectors can take up a bit of that slack.

[theRIAA]

!!!

http://www.desertdomes.com/graphics/dome/6vdiagram.gif

[shooby]

Slick