Uploaded December 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
This is a display and tutorial video of a true 2V geodesic sphere made with 5mm neodymium magnetic balls from sphere and tube subunits.
You can turn on subtitles for this video to see extra tutorial info onscreen of how I built this shape.
The 2V geodesic sphere has 42 vertices in total and 120 edges of 2 different lengths, forming 80 triangular faces all around it. 20 of the triangles are equilateral, formed between 30 hexagonal hubs, and the other 60 are isoceles, with 1 edge between hexagonal hubs and 2 slightly shorter edges each formed by connection to 12 pentagonal hubs.
I used a fundamental mini sphere subunit of a reinforced double layer icosidodecahedron of 180 balls each when complete (I call it an I180 for short), with 12 pentagonal ring faces of 5 balls and 20 triangular faces of 3 balls each.
30 hexagonal hub spheres of 1 polarity (here decorated with yellow gold and white) and 12 pentagonal hub spheres of opposite polarity (here decorated with rose gold) are required.
Each hexagonal hub sphere has 2 attachments points for nonagon tubes (rings of 9 balls 6 balls long) capped at each end with filled 12 ball triangles. The attachment points are made by removing 2 triangles of 3 balls from 2 faces forming the correct angle on the spheres as shown in the tutorial part of the video. They also have 4 hexagonal tubes (rings of 6 balls 4 balls long each) attached at geometrically correct points on the mini spheres to help produce the large geodesic sphere once interconnected. These attachment points are made by removing 4 pairs of 2 balls between pentagonal and triangular faces on the surface of the mini spheres as shown.
Each of 12 rose gold pentagonal hubs has 5 attachment points in a circle around it, made by removing 5 triangular faces of 3 balls each. One end of the nonagon tubes will bond strongly to the hexagonal hub I180 spheres and the other end of opposite polarity will bond equally strongly to the pentagonal hub I180 spheres.
80 triangular faces are formed in the whole large sphere: 20 equilateral triangles of 3 hexagon tubes, and 60 isosceles triangles of 2 nonagon tubes and 1 hexagon tube.
A total magnet count required to build this large sphere for yourself of:
180 - 2 × 3 - 8 = 166 × 30 [edge connecting I180 spheres decorated in yellow gold], 180 - 5 × 3 = 165 × 12 [opposite polarity I180 vertex spheres decorated with rose gold] , 60 × (6 × 9 + 6) [nonagon tube connectors, capped with 12 ball filled triangles at each end] , 4 × 6 × 4 × 30 [hexagon tube connectors] , a total of 13440 neodymium magnetic balls for the complete sphere.
To form a stable base I also added base supports of 5 × 4 × 10 + 2 × 10 = +220 for 6 decagon tubes of 10 ball rings around downward facing rings of 5 balls on the 6 lowest I180 spheres: 5 of length 4, and 1 on the lowest central sphere of length 2 balls, for a grand total of 13660 neodymium magnetic balls.
#ledwatchman #Neocube #Neoballs #Nanodots #ZenMagnets #Speks #Buckyballs #NingoBalls #CyberCube #KlikyBalls #howto
Music track is We Always Thought the Future Would Be Kind of Fun by Chris Zabriskie, from the YouTube free music library.
We Always Thought the Future Would Be Kind of Fun by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Source: chriszabriskie.com/darkglow
Artist: chriszabriskie.com
This is a display and tutorial video of a true 2V geodesic sphere made with 5mm neodymium magnetic balls from sphere and tube subunits.
You can turn on subtitles for this video to see extra tutorial info onscreen of how I built this shape.
The 2V geodesic sphere has 42 vertices in total and 120 edges of 2 different lengths, forming 80 triangular faces all around it. 20 of the triangles are equilateral, formed between 30 hexagonal hubs, and the other 60 are isoceles, with 1 edge between hexagonal hubs and 2 slightly shorter edges each formed by connection to 12 pentagonal hubs.
I used a fundamental mini sphere subunit of a reinforced double layer icosidodecahedron of 180 balls each when complete (I call it an I180 for short), with 12 pentagonal ring faces of 5 balls and 20 triangular faces of 3 balls each.
30 hexagonal hub spheres of 1 polarity (here decorated with yellow gold and white) and 12 pentagonal hub spheres of opposite polarity (here decorated with rose gold) are required.
Each hexagonal hub sphere has 2 attachments points for nonagon tubes (rings of 9 balls 6 balls long) capped at each end with filled 12 ball triangles. The attachment points are made by removing 2 triangles of 3 balls from 2 faces forming the correct angle on the spheres as shown in the tutorial part of the video. They also have 4 hexagonal tubes (rings of 6 balls 4 balls long each) attached at geometrically correct points on the mini spheres to help produce the large geodesic sphere once interconnected. These attachment points are made by removing 4 pairs of 2 balls between pentagonal and triangular faces on the surface of the mini spheres as shown.
Each of 12 rose gold pentagonal hubs has 5 attachment points in a circle around it, made by removing 5 triangular faces of 3 balls each. One end of the nonagon tubes will bond strongly to the hexagonal hub I180 spheres and the other end of opposite polarity will bond equally strongly to the pentagonal hub I180 spheres.
80 triangular faces are formed in the whole large sphere: 20 equilateral triangles of 3 hexagon tubes, and 60 isosceles triangles of 2 nonagon tubes and 1 hexagon tube.
A total magnet count required to build this large sphere for yourself of:
180 - 2 × 3 - 8 = 166 × 30 [edge connecting I180 spheres decorated in yellow gold], 180 - 5 × 3 = 165 × 12 [opposite polarity I180 vertex spheres decorated with rose gold] , 60 × (6 × 9 + 6) [nonagon tube connectors, capped with 12 ball filled triangles at each end] , 4 × 6 × 4 × 30 [hexagon tube connectors] , a total of 13440 neodymium magnetic balls for the complete sphere.
To form a stable base I also added base supports of 5 × 4 × 10 + 2 × 10 = +220 for 6 decagon tubes of 10 ball rings around downward facing rings of 5 balls on the 6 lowest I180 spheres: 5 of length 4, and 1 on the lowest central sphere of length 2 balls, for a grand total of 13660 neodymium magnetic balls.
#ledwatchman #Neocube #Neoballs #Nanodots #ZenMagnets #Speks #Buckyballs #NingoBalls #CyberCube #KlikyBalls #howto
Music track is We Always Thought the Future Would Be Kind of Fun by Chris Zabriskie, from the YouTube free music library.
We Always Thought the Future Would Be Kind of Fun by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Source: chriszabriskie.com/darkglow
Artist: chriszabriskie.com
