When I built the Truncated Icosahedron, I realized that the same technique could be used to make many other shapes. It was around the time In Sweden ( where I live ) that many folks put an advent star in their windows, so it was not hard to find inspiration … just a matter of choice about how many points the star should have.
The model is just under half a meter in diameter, has 1246 parts, including 532 pins, and weighs about 920 grams. Just like with the paper advent stars, this one you can fold open and ‘flat’.
You can find a design for a support for the star here. The support has the possibility to have a LED bulb installed.
Building the model
Download the design in Ldraw here. I made it on a Mac with Bricksmith, but the file should work with other Ldraw software for Lego designs.
A few pointers to build it:
There is a lot of repetition in this model. The star has seven point and each point is made of four triangles. The four triangles consist of two sets of two identical triangles: one set with black and yellow hinges (called ‘Quarter point with hinges’ in the Ldraw file) and one set with only yeallow hinges (called ‘Quarter point without hinges’).
To quickly build the model
- First make 14 triangles of the one type and 14 of the another.
- Assemble them into half points and then points
- Attach all the points together in flattened form. This is less easy than it may sound or look because the attaching pins are quite strong and inflexible.
- Unfold the star as you see in the photo sequence above.
- Connect the two ends of the line – lots of fiddling, but you can do it.
- Center the ribs at the sides of the star.
Frank van der Most 