Download 3-Strut Spring Tensegrity Fractal 2

This is a variation on my last post. In this case instead of replicating parallel along each strut, the base units are mirrored and existing in two states. In one state the wires connect from the top-left, through the next strut and to the bottom right on the next strut in an interlocking fashion. In the other the wires connect from the bottom-left of one strut, up through the middle of the next strut and finally connect to the top-right of the next strut in an interlocking fashion. The two different yet similar units are mirror images of one another and when they tessellate in 3D using mirroring as a rule an interesting structure results that is unlike the first fractal in every way, except it is essentially built from the same unit. When the height of the base unit is varied and animated, it is looks like a 3D kaleidoscope while it versions through a changing continuum of nearly symmetrical patterns.

Download 3-Strut Spring Tensegrity Fractal

This is a logical extension of the below listed spring tensegrity. With long enough struts and wires this structure could be repeated in any of three directions ad infinitum. I have also built one of these from dowel, piano wire, aluminum tube and zip ties. The next step will be to create a modular single unit like the one listed below using nickel-titanium memory wire so the pieces can be assembled into any desired shape one unit at a time. Depending on the strut-length and wire interval, the structure can exist as anything between nearly-cubic and extremely rhombic.

Download 3-Strut Spring Tensegrity

This is an interesting new adaptation of Buckminster Fuller’s tensegrity structures that uses spring wire and struts instead of tendons and struts to make a structure that supports itself. It will not carry load like a true tensegrity will but may have other interesting conceptual applications. The animation is demonstrating a range of potential structures created by driving some parameters with an adaptation of Fuller’s twist angle theorem for determining the twist angle of an n-strut tensegrity.