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November 23, 2012

Six pole tensegrity gateway

I posted a tensegrity tower project a few years ago, based on the tetrahedral tensegrity. Tensegrities are a type of structure where none of the poles touch each other, but are supported by a ntework of cables in tension.

This new tower / gateway takes the form of the 6-strut tensegrity, with the pairs of parallel poles at right angles to each other, and 24 ropes between them.
Here is the construction sequence we used in building a stave model with 2m long laths:
  1. - attach four ropes to the top of two longer poles (3m/10ft in this case), then raise them up and lash them each to a stake.
  2. -suspend the next (blue) pole between these two, hanging from two ropes from each of the vertical (red poles). This blue pole should have two of it's own ropes tied on to each end.
  3. -the remaining  four ropes are now used to attach the two yellow poles, which are parallel to each other and on the same level. Each of these should have two ropes tied on to each end.
  4. Finally, the bottom blue pole is attached, suspended from the yellow poles and braced to the bottom of the red poles.

I suggest using a cotton cord for tying this, and being prepared to spend a lot of time tidying up and levelling the structure. It looks neatest if you are able to cut the loose ends of cords off once you are finished. Alternatively, you can get this kit from Amazon for building a tensegrity cube.

1 comment:

Fire In The Dingo said...

Appreciate the time you took to post this