Simon Griffee Visual design, photography, writing, illustration

Hand-made Coriolis Cuboctahedron Space Station!

Published 2016 August 18

I was inspired to make a Coriolis Space Station (a cuboctahedron) after seeing the recent Elite: Dangerous art book while reading The Hand by Frank R. Wilson (recommended to me by Milton Glaser).

A set of photos showing all build steps.

All the steps in one image.

The finished piece.

The finished piece not quite floating, but 🌟glowing🌟 in my workspace!

Update 2016-08-19: Comments from my high school graphics teacher :)

Tools and Materials

Build Process

  1. Three post-it notes.
  2. 002 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  3. 003 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  4. 004 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  5. 005 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  6. 006 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  7. 007 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  8. 008 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  9. 009 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  10. 010 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  11. 011 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  12. 012 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  13. 013 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  14. 014 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  15. 015 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  16. 016 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  17. 017 Coriolis Cuboctahedron
  18. 018 Coriolis Cuboctahedron

    Kepler City seen from a distance of ~8km in the HR244 system of the Elite: Dangerous simulator.

See you in space, Commander!

—Cmdr Griffee

Update 2016-08-19

My high school graphics teacher, Master Alan Ceen's, reply:

2D net of a cuboctahedron.

It is much simpler with a little use of Graphics (remember Simon?) to obtain the 2D net for the Cuboctahedron.

Tools of the master.

And the instruments that did it in 12 minutes flat.

Keywords: alan ceen coriolis cuboctahedron elite geometry graphics hand paper post-it notes scissors solid space space station tape