The Dodecahedron

This is the twinkling dodecahedron. The dodecahedron is one of the 5 regular polytopes in 3 dimensions and it's made up of 12 regular pentagons. I got inspired to make this after seeing a video made by Matt Parker which shows how to do it and I just had to make it into a night light because it looked so damn cool!

Intro

All this is is just a slow blinking night light. It took me about 4 hours in total to make this after getting all the materials so when you make it; make sure you have enough time on your hands.

What you'll need

-8 sheets of A4 paper or if you already have it; 30 pieces of square paper. ( it works with post-it's). Also you can skip the first step if you already have squares.

-1 sheet of butter paper

-Some kind of glue. I used super glue.

-Last, you will need to have the parts for the flashing LED which you can learn to assemble from my other project:- https://www.instructables.com/id/The-Simple-Flasher... - However depending on how fast you want it to blink you can change the capacitors. I changed both to 100u and also one of the 470 ohm resistors with a 10k one but you can modify it as you like.

Step 1: Make 30 Squares

I hope it's safe to assume that you can figure out how to do this from the pictures.

You will only need 7 and a half sheets from which you will get 4 squares each making a total of 30 (number of edges in a dodecahedron)

Sounds like a lot of trouble but keep at it and you will love the results!

Step 2: Fold Them Into the Edges

1st You need to fold it into an 'M' cross sectional shape

2ndMake sure that it is oriented as shown in the picture before you fold the corners to make it into the dagger shape.

3rd Make a crease for the edge as shown in the picture

Repeat this for all the squares

Step 3: Vertex

This will show you how to assemble a vertex. The first image shows what it should look like without the flaps tucked into the slits made when it was folded into an 'M'

Step 4: Assemble a Side and the Rest of the Shape

The pictures should be self-explanatory but if you have any problem let me know and I'll do my best to help. Or take a look at the video by Matt Parker himself making it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV7sbaffuNo

Step 5: The Electronics

Don't be afraid, I understand how much trouble you must have went through to get this far but don't afraid of the electronics even if you have no experience. You can learn how to make it in my other project but here I have just used 100u capacitors instead of the smaller 22u ones and a 10k resistor in place of one of the 470ohm ones. The reason for this is to reduce the rate at which the led blinks to make it a little more 'soothing' to look at.

How to make it: https://www.instructables.com/id/The-Simple-Flasher...

To put it on a perforated board I just arranged them in the same way as I did for the bread board and soldered them in the same way as connected on the breadboard.

A tip given to me by 'klauson' to help defuse the light more is to scrape the led with sand paper.