The two beaded superfullerenes showing up at the Bridges 2013

Now that the big week of our society, the Bridges 2013, is coming. Embarrassingly, I completed the beaded molecules submitted to the art exhibition this year only recently. So here they are. If you are coming to the event, you are more than welcome show up at Bih-Yaw's and my talks on next Tuesday afternoon. Also with the help from Paul of the Zometool inc., we will hold an event for the Family Day (Sunday) constructing the giant superfullerene appeared earlier on this blog (blog entry link, Family Day event link). Feel free to join us at the scene!

C60⊗C60 with g=1: C4680. 7020 3mm phosphorescent beads used. Viewed from one of the fivefold rotational axes.

My friend Chun-Teh (陳俊德), who is also a grad student at MIT, helped me shooting the photos. He managed to do a long exposure shot on this one glowing in the dark. It's pretty amazing when you see it glow. Way much brighter than I thought. This particular photo was shot nearly along one of the threefold axes.

V-substituted Dodecahedron⊗C80 with g=1: C4960. 7440 6mm faceted plastic beads were used. Viewed from one of the fivefold rotational axes. There are 20 supernodes in the inner shell (purple) and 30 in the outer shell (blue). If you look careful enough and follow the colored beads representing the non-hexagons, you would find that all of the 50 nodes have the same orientation. This is a manifestation of the zome geometry property. 

Viewed from one of the threefold rotational axes. 

At the very beginning of the constructing this model, I was worrying about whether the structure could hold itself or not. When the first ring of supernodes (five on the inner side and five on the outer side) was completed, it was so soft that I could easily bend it to a degree. And also I was concerned about if the structure can be built at all. Since it is a very different story than constructing them hypothetically on a computer: strain can be built alongside the construction and one might not be able to fit the later pieces in near completion. Gratefully none of the above issues was really an issue. I can really tell that there is minimal strain since before the last supernode comes in, the whole structure is already holding itself up so that the piece will fit just about right. Eventually the structure, though is not as strong as other giant beaded molecules I've built, is pretty OK of supporting itself without additional scaffold. 

A comparison of the scale. See you soon in Enschede!