Introduction: Globe Project

It all began with a ball.

My 2 year old kid love mapping, he learned all the states from the planar world map. So I wanted to show him where we are on earth, like in 3d. I decided instead of buying a globe, to build one. Grabed the ball, paper, water, some paper glue and started a papier-mâché terra making.

Step 1: Papier-mâché

I used a gym ball placed in a baby bath tub. Mixed some paper glue with water. Gathered useless paper and layered them one by one. My inspiration came from these videos:

I extra layered some tongs, glued them with gypsum and water, to be more robust. After finishing the 2 parts of the globe, I joined them together with a 1 metter threaded rod, 4 washers and 4 nuts.

Step 2: Marking the Continents.

Then I market the altitude and longitude lines, and drawed the continents using a permanent marker, and the Google Earth app open on my computer. With the help of my son, added a "layer of continents" using gypsum and water.

Step 3: Axial Tilt.

I used Autodesk Autocad app to design the stand for the globe, calculating the aprox. 23° angle.

I'm using metric system.

Materials used for stand:

  1. About 5 metters of ∅ 20mm pvc pipe.
  2. 13 pcs of ∅ 20mm pvc tee fittings.
  3. 4 pcs of ∅ 20mm 45° pvc elbows.
  4. 2 pcs of ∅ 20mm 3-way pvc elbows.
  5. 2 pcs of ∅ 20mm pvc caps.
  6. 2 pcs of ∅ 16mm pvc pipe 15mm long.
  7. 2 washers.
  8. 1 nut.

Video