Thirty identical stainless steel parts interlock to
make this 7-inch diameter sculpture. I find it to be a a very elegant
design, because
the parts are so simple. The snake template is shown below.
The key to the structure is in the way groups of three mouths join at
right angles and lock everything
together. The notches on the back of the necks meet in pairs and
prevent any slippage. The thirty parts hold each other together
rigidly, but until the last one is snapped in, it can all fall apart.
Above and below are views along a five-fold
axis. If you look carefully, you can see it as a compound of five
tetrahedra. Six snakes, joined mouth to mouth to mouth, form the
edges of each tetrahedron.
Copyright 2006, George W. Hart
