It’s called a "geodesic" dome. Geodesic domes are made of light-weight materials formed into interlocking geometric shapes – often triangles. Because loads are spread over many triangles, these domes are especially strong. Often made of aluminum bars and strong plastic, they’re also light compared to ordinary domes.

Geodesic domes were popularized by an American inventor named Buckminster Fuller, who lived from 1895 to1983. Look for the distinctive Bucky-ball shape in museums, greenhouses, alternative housing and science centres. Vancouver’s Science World is a 47-metre tall geodesic dome made of 766 triangles.

Materials

• newspaper
• broom handle or similarly shaped piece of wood (called "doweling")
• tape
• marker pen
• stapler (and staples)
• measuring tape

Like a real engineer, you will probably need to rely on teamwork to get this project finished.

Why? Because the dome tends to flop over unless it’s supported, and stapling is a bit tricky unless you get help holding all the newspaper tubes together.

Using a piece of doweling makes stronger tubes that are harder to staple. Using a broom handle makes slightly weaker tubes that are easier to staple.

Instructions

1. Open up a sheet of newspaper. Roll the newspaper around the doweling diagonally from one corner to the other.

2. Cut a piece of tape and stick it to something (preferably not your head) for a minute. Hold the newspaper tube in one hand and gently pull out the dowel with your other hand. If you rolled the newspaper really tightly, you may need to wiggle and twist the dowel a bit. Use the piece of tape to keep the newspaper tube together.

3. Cut the tube to length. [Note: The ends of the tube are not very stiff. To make a stronger tube, make the tube the correct length by cutting some off both ends.] You need a total of 35 newspaper tubes measuring 71 cm and 30 tubes measuring 66 cm. So get busy rolling, measuring and cutting. Keep the two lengths separated.

4. Use the marker pen to put a mark on the longer newspaper tubes. Now you'll be able to tell the two lengths apart easily. From now on, we will call the marked tubes ‘A’, the unmarked tubes ‘B’.

   

5. Arrange 10 ‘A’s in a circle.

6. Overlap the ends of two tubes by 2 cm and staple together. Repeat this to form the base of the dome.

7. Lay alternating pairs of ‘A’s and ‘B’s radiating out from the central circle.

   

8. Pick up two of the ‘A’s and form a triangle with them and one of the ‘A’s from the circle. Staple the joints firmly.

9. Do the same thing with the rest of the tube pairs. You should end up with a circle of triangles poking into the air. Tall triangles should alternate with short triangles.

10. Connect the triangles by stapling a row of ‘B’s across the top.

11. Every point where four ‘B’s come together, staple on another ‘B’ pointing straight up.

    

12. Brace the ‘B’s by using two ‘A’s, one attached to each neighbouring joint.

13. Connect the tubes by stapling a row of ‘A’s across the top.

14. Finish the dome by adding the last five ‘B’s. These tubes come from the five joints and meet in the middle.