Low Poly Spheres: Truncated Icosahedron

Low Poly Spheres: Low-poly, high-fun!

Low Poly Spheres is a series 3D printable models of polyhedra that look like low-poly spheres. You may remember from math class that polyhedra are solid 3D shapes with flat polygonal faces, straight edges, and sharp corners or vertices. Low Poly Spheres are fun to make and display. You can print them in different colors and sizes, and use them as decorations, toys, or educational tools. Low Poly Spheres are a fun way to enjoy 3D printing and mathematics. They are simple, yet beautiful and fascinating. 

Truncated Icosahedron - Fun Facts

A truncated icosahedron is a shape with 32 faces: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. It has 60 corners and 90 edges. It is one of the 13 Archimedean solids, which are shapes made of regular polygons.

Some interesting facts about truncated icosahedrons:

• The lenses used for focusing the explosive shock waves of the detonators in the Fat Man atomic bomb were constructed in the configuration of a truncated icosahedron.
• It did became a familiar household shape with the 1970 introduction of the Adidas Telstar soccer ball, whose white hexagons surrounding black pentagons forming a truncated icosahedron are now iconically associated with the sport of soccer. 
• They are also the shape of buckyballs, which are molecules of carbon with 60 atoms. Buckyballs (fullerenes) are named after Buckminster Fuller, who designed geodesic domes based on truncated icosahedrons.