Revisited

Red Star (Intertwined tensegrity tetrahedra)

I revisited my attempts to combine tetrahedra to build a tensegrity representation of the merkaba. Red Star comes so far closest to joining two tetrahedra in this fashion, yet I had to take two different sizes. The tendons of the red tetra are suspended from the struts of the larger one, it can vibrate while the outer structure is extremely solid.

Red Star

The tendons of the larger tetra connect to each other, instead of directly from strut to strut. I haven't tried out this way of connecting a corner with elastic string, with nylon it works really well, and is optically very appealing.

Merkaba (Tensegrity octahedron with 8 tensuls attached to form two tetrahedra)

With 36 sticks the sculpture Merkaba offered initially hardly any depth to it, as all struts had the same colour. I rebuild the structure using a green octahedron, and using bicolour struts for one of the surrounding tetrahedra. The model balances on each of its eight tetrahedral corners, and folds down along the axis connecting opposite corners of the octahedron.

Merkaba