Supersized Octahedral Dodecahedrons | 6480/8100 Neodymium Magnetic Balls @ledwatchman

Supersized Octahedral Dodecahedrons | 6480/8100 Neodymium Magnetic Balls @ledwatchman

Uploaded January 2012 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

The two large magnet structures in this video are built entirely from the same small repeated octahedron unit made of 4 rings of 9, or 36 neodymium magnetic balls each (5mm diameter ones).
The geometry here is only approximate: a perfect 'octahedral dodecahedron' isn't really possible, as interconnected octahedrons don't quite form complete pentagonal rings, yet very nearly, leaving a small gap - a kind of odd geometric fact. But the magnetic force and some give among the magnets closes the gaps in these physical models.
Stats:
The double layer complete dodecahedron frame:
180 octahedrons, 6480 magnets (36 × 15 × 12).
The triple layer large dome:
225 octahedrons, 8100 magnets (36 × 15 × 15).
I was also able to build a quadruple layer complete sphere version of this shape from smaller octahedron units of 18 balls each:
youtube.com/watch?v=7B_ESXsL5LM
COCOAUB had earlier built a triple layer complete sphere from the same smaller unit:
youtube.com/watch?v=1OWG-ygqjZk
Music track was Oxygene 6 by Jean Michel Jarre, now audio swapped for Time & Motion by Terry Devine-King, for copyright reasons.

#ledwatchman #Neocube #Neoballs #Nanodots #ZenMagnets #Speks #Buckyballs #NingoBalls #CyberCube #KlikyBalls #NeoQube

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Supersized Octahedral Dodecahedrons | 6480/8100 Neodymium Magnetic Balls