Awesome Geometry

YouTube channel Brick Bending specializes in creating unexpected geometries using LEGO bricks. This satisfying video shows how they built an oversize wheel using three kinds of hinged components in a repeating pattern. We imagine you could use this method to build a wheel as large as you want, given enough bricks.

Frustrated by missing shots on a regular pool table, The Q went ahead and built himself a special kind of pool table where the ball goes in the pocket virtually every time. The trick is its elliptical shape, which sets up the perfect bank shot at every angle. This video from Numberphile explains the geometry at work.

Magnetic Games presents yet another wonderfully satisfying video, in which he uses hundreds of magnetic rods and spheres to create an complicated geometric sculpture. He placed a light at the center of his masterpiece, so it casts interesting shadows as well. After it’s all done, he knocks it down with a catapult.

Are you craving your daily dose of math and science? Veritasium is here to fill our brains with all kinds of interesting facts about geometry and patterns, eventually leading to a demonstration of interlocking tiles that can extend infinitely across a plane without ever repeating their layout.

Tested’s Adam Savage got his hands on the Zometool Hyperdo, an incredibly complex building kit based on a 4D object known as a hyperdodecahedron. The 120-cell object is made up from 640 struts and 330 connection nodes. It requires a lot of time and patience to assemble, but the end result is worth it.

Perhaps the most difficult of Bgraamiens’ challenging jigsaw designs, this 1000-piece puzzle is covered with a seemingly random arrangement of skinny lines, overlapping across a white background. Looking for something more colorful? Check out more of their puzzle designs here.

Mathematician Kokichi Sugihara of Meiji University shows off another brain-breaking optical illusion, taking home the prize of Best Illusion of 2020. While it looks like a simple design at first, the 3D Schröder Staircase looks exactly the same right-side-up and upside-down, its left end looking taller than its right.

A truncated icosidodecahedron is a polyhedral shape made up of hexagonal, decagonal, and square faces. Maker Michael Mikkelson shows how he made one of the polygonal globes from laser-cut birch plywood, 3D-printed connectors, and 360 screws. Up for the challenge? Head to Instructables for the full build instructions.

From the expert machinists at AltDynamic comes their most impressive creation yet, a family of elegant aluminum playthings which look nothing like a sphere, yet can roll like one. Each one splits down the middle and is held together with magnets. They come in three variants, each with its own unique rolling properties.

The guys at ThunderDomes are in the business of building geodesic domes. But they also make some nifty LED lamps, which use 3D printing and cast resin structures to throw dramatic shadows onto walls, ceilings, and floors. They come in a variety of designs, with our favorite being the golden ratio spiral pattern.

We all know that bees make their honeycombs by creating nearly perfect hexagonal cells. But why is that they chose hexagons to do their building? CGP Grey looks into the power and strength of this basic six-sided form, especially when it comes to tiling efficiency.

Makers of cool metal objects AltDynamic are back with another really sweet design. The Tesseract is a CNC-machined aluminum cube within a cube that looks like a rare totem from another dimension. It comes in three sizes: 1.9″ Mini, 2.4″ Mighty, and 2.9″ Mega, in raw aluminum and three anodized colors.

Despite their YouTube channel’s name, The Philadelphia Robot Factory has significantly more magnets than robots. In this highly satisfying video, they disassemble a hefty hexagonal structure they made from 50,000 individual magnetic spheres, layer by layer. Now enjoy the same in reverse.

You’d think that when you say you want half a sandwich, it would simply take a straight cut down the middle to get your 50/50 share. But Numberphile explains how it’s not quite that simple of a task if you really want exactly half. Now how to apply theory to reality…

Among his diverse works, artist Jason “REVOK” Williams creates enormous Spirograph-style images using a wall-mounted set of wooden gear rings, which allow him to spray paint geometric patterns. Here’s an earlier circular rig he set up.

Digital artist Julius Horsthuis calls his short “fantasy sci-fi story without a story.” What makes his eye-popping film even more amazing is that the structures and planets were generated procedurally, using fractal math. The soundtrack by David Levy seals the deal.

Raven Kwok created this mesmerizing music video for the track Skyline by Karma Fields. The visuals were created using code that is based in part on Voronoi tessellation, a geometric model first used by René Descartes back in 1644.