I was invited to lead a large Zome build at SUMaC this past Sunday. I gave the campers three options, each of which was expected to make use of most of the available Zometool parts. They selected the partial truncated 600-cell, a 3D projection of a 4D polytope.

The build team and the finished model

The build was completed in two hours, a remarkable feat considering that most of the team were Zometool novices. Most of this can be attributed to the fact that all of these students are very sharp. I also prepared interactive 3D build instructions, seen below, and printed QR codes for them to scan. Mobile phones and tablets were put to good use, and they could largely self-direct to assemble the model.

Build steps for the Truncated 600-Cell

We did have one hitch. When I designed this model, I failed to notice that the bottom was actually in two layers! The students detected this almost immediately, and I had to scramble to identify what we needed. The result was some triangular “feet” added at a few spots, which you can see in the (now somewhat inconsistent) build steps above. We got this wrong, initially, but corrected it quickly.

Adding feet to level the model base... incorrectly!