A group of grade seven Edgehill Elementary School students have created a giant rhombicosidodecahedron out of cardboard as part of a project in class.
Grade seven teacher Stephen Ball said the project grew out of him acquiring a bunch of plastic screws that hold cardboard together. He said he googled several different ideas for making small structures like a little playhouse or a little rocket. He said his class is made up of a great group of children who are motivated and know how to work on their own really well, so he thought it would be good for them to engage in such a project.
Ball said his students designed a template and measured the structure out, consisting of 24-inch polygons and other cardboard geometry. The students agreed that the rhombicosidodecahedron was what they were going to build and they stuck to it, “right to the very end.”
“They’re wonderful kids,” said Ball.
As the freestanding structure started to take shape, the students were startled at its size, said Ball. The structure does not have any internal supports so the students were surprised it would stand without crumpling.
“We thought we were going to have to structure something inside to keep it from folding in on itself,” said Ball. “But it held together. The students wondered what they were getting themselves into, but they had made a decision, so they were going to do it.”
Building the structure was an extracurricular activity outside of classroom activities but students involved will get credit.
“They deserve validation for it,” said Ball.
The reaction of other students in the school to the project has been one of wonderment, according to Ball. Because of COVID-19, the school couldn’t hold an assembly to highlight the project, but students have gone into the gymnasium, where the rhombicosidodecahedron is standing, to admire it.
The structure will not be immediately disassembled and it will be kept on the school stage in the gymnasium for students to admire. When it’s finally taken apart, the sections and screws that make up the structure will all be counted and the cardboard will be weighed.
“One piece of cardboard weighs nothing, but when you add them all together, it weighs a lot,” said Ball.
Student Madyx Whiteway said the project “just came out of nowhere.”
“I thought it would be something very unique,” said Madyx.
Student Samara Brown said the group didn’t want to do something ordinary and small.
“We went full-out,” she said.
The rhombicosidodecahedron somewhat resembles the Science World dome in Vancouver, according to Samara. The Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Park also resembles the students’ creation.
The project took a couple of months to complete. The students began working on it in early April. It was designed on paper prior to any cardboard being cut and fastened together.
“We didn’t really expect that it would be this big,” said Samara. “It kind of just got larger and larger. When it got to the top we had to stand on the stage and tilt it.”
The cardboard for the project was acquired in several different places around town, with the bulk of it coming from Mitchell Brothers and Westcoast Furniture.
The students all said they were pleased with how the project turned out and it was as good as they had hoped.
