Uploaded October 2013 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
One of the things I like about this sphere is that the double octagons that are positioned between 2 hexagonal stars are stretched so much. Also, it is nice that it is possible to lift the sphere without damaging it in spite of the size and weight. The reverse of polarity halfway the 20 bars was necessary to make the interior match the exterior.
For making the 5- and 6-pointed stars you may find it easier to use the cardboard method I show in the previous video 'Many pointed double layer stars'
Some other really large sphere approaches have been made with magnets before, that I'ld like to mention:
Boyd Edwards has a neat one, Large Snub Ball (on Youtube), based on the snub dodecahedron, 2 layers, 4500 dots. Mathnetism designed 3 big balls, the smaller ones can be found on his Flickr account, the largest one is his Giant Truncated Dodecahedron Sphere (on Youtube), I don't know how many magnets (update: nearly 16000 he commented, it has a 19 cm. diameter if he remembers well). Finally the well known 1860 dots 'ultimate ball' that one can be found on various channels must be mentioned. I don't know who came up with that one first, probably theneoshow with a tutorial upload on Nov 5, 2010.
If you know of another large sphere approach that should be mentioned here, please let me know.
One of the things I like about this sphere is that the double octagons that are positioned between 2 hexagonal stars are stretched so much. Also, it is nice that it is possible to lift the sphere without damaging it in spite of the size and weight. The reverse of polarity halfway the 20 bars was necessary to make the interior match the exterior.
For making the 5- and 6-pointed stars you may find it easier to use the cardboard method I show in the previous video 'Many pointed double layer stars'
Some other really large sphere approaches have been made with magnets before, that I'ld like to mention:
Boyd Edwards has a neat one, Large Snub Ball (on Youtube), based on the snub dodecahedron, 2 layers, 4500 dots. Mathnetism designed 3 big balls, the smaller ones can be found on his Flickr account, the largest one is his Giant Truncated Dodecahedron Sphere (on Youtube), I don't know how many magnets (update: nearly 16000 he commented, it has a 19 cm. diameter if he remembers well). Finally the well known 1860 dots 'ultimate ball' that one can be found on various channels must be mentioned. I don't know who came up with that one first, probably theneoshow with a tutorial upload on Nov 5, 2010.
If you know of another large sphere approach that should be mentioned here, please let me know.
