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Hoberman Sphere Building Blocks

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the silly-rabbit!-toys-aren't-just-for-kids! dept.

jmoyers writes "From the people that brought you the Hoberman Sphere comes the Expandagon Construction System. It allows you to build your own folding structures. "Each building block (called an Expandagon) is made of preassembled parts that allow it to expand and contract. This means that you can build very complex expanding shapes easily, using only a few building blocks." "

4 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. I've seen these before... by ParadoXIII · · Score: 3

    They have them at the Store of Knowledge and similar places.
    Basic set is $20... Advanced is 40 and Expert is 60. Here is the product info for the three sets.

  2. Re:expandable spheres by chadmulligan · · Score: 4
    I never stopped to analyze the mechanism, however.

    The mechanism is actually quite simple, the trick is in the linkage that converts a dimensional variation along one axis into an inverse variation at right angles, which is then taken up and reconverted by the adjoining edges. So all polygons are forced to contract or expand proportionally.

    While one is limited to building unit-edge polyhedra - closed ones work better than open ones - there are much more of those than is usually supposed. Have a look at Poly (Mac and Windows versions available), a shareware program which displays an astonishing variety of polyhedra. [Insert usual disclaimers here]

  3. toys, duals, viral crystal, synergetics by Corrinne+Yu · · Score: 4

    I am a coder, not a toy-maker. So if the following suggestsions are dorky to professional toy-makers I apologize.

    The following are some toys I would enjoy.

    1. Toys that allow me to squish a geometric form into its dual, and back to its dual.

    2. Toys that allow me to build viral crystal building blocks, and visualize how viral crystals stack.

    3. Toys composed simply of 1 gadget, an octet truss, or an isotropic vector matrix.
    http://www.inetarena.com/~pdx4d/ocn/chaos0.html

    4. Polyhedron truncation. Things that allow me to make new polyhedron by truncating corners. And then allows me to make new polyhedron by un-truncating corners.

    5. Packing toys. i.e., spheres of arbitrary sizes, pyramids of aribitrary sizes, and then a way to contruct convex hull containers of arbitrary interesting shapes. Then I can build the convex hull, throw spheres or pyramids into them, shake them around (thus, applying physical real-life stochastic simulated annealing to find local min bounds), and see what I get.

    If any of the above are dorkily impractical toy suggestions, my apologies.

    P.S. I know we can write code to simulate all the above. But there is something fun to "touch things with your hands." :)



  4. They are really cool ... for a while. by hamjudo · · Score: 5
    They are really neat for the first few hours. Then you start to see the limitations.

    Regular solids work well. More complex things don't expand and contract so well.

    If you get the little set, you think, gosh I can make some cool things with the big set. You need the big set to see that you can only build things so large before they just don't work at all.

    There are also little playability issues with the extra swivel joints. They are hard to get together. Sometimes when taking things apart, they come apart in the wrong places.

    If you really like construction toys like Lego Technics, assume you'll get 4 to 8 hours of fun out these things. Then it will sit on the shelf.

    What is 4 hours of construction fun worth to you?