Make: Online : Tensegrity tower

Tensegrity tower

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In MAKE 06 William Gurstelle shows you how to build "tensegrity models" - a "needle tower" sculpture from dowels and elastic cord that seems to defy the laws of physics. MAKE 06 - Page 100 (subscribers read it now)... - Here are some photos from MAKE Flickr photo pool member Drinkumbrella of a newly made tower.

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Posted by: idyll23 on June 18, 2006 at 9:30 PM

many ages ago I was in the architecture program at Texas A&M and was lucky enough to have learned about tensegrity structures from Alan Stacell. I considered him a mentor as well as a friend and was happy to see that when he passed away in 2001 a tensegrity structure was built in his honor.
A tower for Stacell PDF FORMAT
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Posted by: marc.lacoste on June 19, 2006 at 3:10 PM

I saw a simialar structure near Utrecht, Nederland, circa 97 in a museum garden, around 12 meters tall. Apart the beauty of the thing, it was funy to make it enter resonance by moving a part on the ground, ad a wave sent the movement to the top. Not bad for a one-ton structure.

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