Extruded Swan Sonobe Dodecahedron
by Chaunce Dolan on Thursday, May 13th, 2010
Here is a recent origami project that I have completed. It is a sonobe variant by Meenakshi Mukerji in the form of an extruded dodecahedron. (That was a mouthful) It was a little confusing to figure our how to put it together, but with a little tenacity, I got it.
You will need to fold a total of 90 units. Start by making a pyramid and connect 5 pyramids to make a pentagon shape. Connect pentagon shapes on each face of the pentagon, so you will get 5 pentagons surrounding one (see diagram below). It will make more sense in building. Where three pentagons connect, there will be 6 pyramid units. When finished, you will have 12 pentagon units connected into a sphere.
extrudedSwanSonobeDodecahedron-meenakshiMukerji.pdf
I made one with three colors and made each pyramid with each color as one third of the pyramid. However, I tried and tried but would always end up with one or two pyramids having two sections of one color, thus resulting in an imperfect origami creation, which is never acceptable. So now I wonder if it’s mathematically impossible to make all of
the pyramids have the three colors in them.