As some of you know I bought a viking camp a few months ago and I've been remodelling it to make a mathematics creativity center. Within the main building is a glassblowing studio, which will be converted into a math workshop, with lots of art and building supplies. It has a beautiful half-cylinder vaulted ceiling which will be great to suspend some artwork from.

The room is filled with glassblowing equipment right now. In the room I found 13 glassblowing rods, about 1.5 meter pipes which a glassblower blows through to make a glass bubble on the other end. I immediately thought to make a stella octangula with 12 of them, 2 intersecting tetrahedra (triangular pyramids), one up and one down, which make an octahedron for their intersection. I thought it would be one of the more interesting shapes that could be made with 12 sticks. A cube and an octahedron are other shapes that can be made with 12 sticks but the stella octangula is much more interesting. I also thought I'd like to hang it in the vaulted ceiling. When the room is transformed from a glass studio to a math studio, it will then retain a piece of its history. I like that.

Back in January I taped together 6 of the rods to make this tetrahedron:

And there the project stood for a while. I couldn't think of a good way to hold the pieces together, short of welding them and I don't have access to welding equipment anymore. But this weekend I gave another go at getting this sculpture together.

First I tried finding screws to fit tightly into the ends. I thought I could then wire the screws together. It was a disaster, all the holes are different sizes. I broke one nylon tip.

So I dropped some screws loosely into the ends and wrapped wire around the ends. This worked great in my mind. In reality, not so good. Not good at all. The rods just slid out, even with very tight winding.

I really didn't want to drill holes through the ends. That would be 24 holes through what has to be some very high quality steel. Then inspiration struck -- hose clamps!

I wired the clamps together.

My youngest daughter helped me hold it all in place as I put the final pieces together.

Sculpture together... and strong.

Zips ties in the center of the rods. Simple and very effective.

Ready to hang

And finally -- the world's first glassblowing rod stella octangula hanging in the art studio.

I used a lot of hours playing with the rods and playing with ideas, but once the idea for hose clamps hit it went quickly. Just a few hours from when I left to drive to the hardware to get the clamps until the sculpture was hanging.

There will be a lot more math art coming in the next few months! It feels great to have this piece completed.

Here's picture I posted earlier to hubski of another two sculptures I made over Christmas break: https://hubski.com/pub?id=202027