My main predicament remains: how to connect the triangles?
After creating my triangles with the notches, I brainstormed with Oscar to come up with other strategies. One material available to us is contact paper, so I decided to experiment with that while also looking for a way to sturdily attach my notched triangles.
I decided to split the octahedron into two pyramids and focus first on creating a sturdy pyramid. To start, I cut four triangles out of acrylic with the laser cutter. Next, I traced the pattern of the four triangles on graph paper and cut the same pattern onto the back of black contact paper.
After cutting my first strip of contact paper, I traced the lines with a ruler to ensure my second cut would have straight lines.
The triangles need to be spaced on the contact paper so that there is room to bend. I wedged an extra triangles between the two I was measuring to ensure I left enough room.
Here are all three triangles on the contact paper. As you can see, the spacing is not perfect - this is just a prototype so I didn't spend a lot of time positioning the triangles.
My method was to attach three triangles and then attach the fourth with two triangular "wings" that would overlap the adjacent triangles.
One problem that became evident right after wrapping the contact paper around the triangles was the space created between the edges of the triangles and the contact paper. This space meant the triangles could wiggle and shift, as you can see in the image below.
One solution would be to hold the two triangles at the right angle before putting on the contact paper, and fill the free space with hot glue.
Figuring out how to make a stable structure will be my objective for next week!
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