Building a Cardboard Planetarium

One trip down a YouTube rabbit hole I stumbled across the ingenious Beals Science Cardboard Planetarium, a geodesic cardboard dome big enough to fit an entire secondary school classroom inside. I thought having a go at making my own scaled down version would be a perfect lockdown project.

Geodesic Domes

I had previously found some interesting dome constructions which set me on the path to finding this calculator for giving dimensions for dome parts. A geodesic dome is comprised of triangles grouped together to make hexagons and pentagons.

Pentagon and hexagon formed from triangles.

The net of a geodesic dome.

My first exploration of geodesic domes used rolled up paper connected with split pins. And so it was I built a prison for my daughter!

Geodesic prison