A 40-Triangle Interactive Geodesic Dome
This geodesic dome lights up, makes sounds, and plays games!
Geodesic domes – spheres and semi-spheres composed of a three-dimensional triangle arrangements – have long seemed like the “technology of the future.” You can see them everywhere from Disney’s Epcot to unique housing developments, but they're still not quite mainstream. However, add lights, sensors, and sound capabilities to such a structure, and you have something really special.
As part of their education at the University of Málaga School of Telecommunications in Spain, students Francisca Molero Luque, Dolores Martín Cabrera and Laura Mejía Ospina decided to create their own 40-triangle "Magic Dome." The device uses an Arduino Uno for control, which lights up one programmable RGB LED for each triangle, and activates a speaker for sound output. "Touch" input to the dome is via a series of IR sensors, with signals fed to the Uno using a series of 8-channel 74LS151 multiplexers. This allows it to play music in “piano” mode, or play a game of Simon, where one must copy the emitted light patterns.
The Magic Dome itself is inspired by Jon Bumstead’s Interactive LED Dome found here. This version is scaled down from 120 triangles to a more “makeable” 40-triangle size, using the Desert Domes calculator to figure out the dimensions. Construction was accomplished using wood and 3D-printed materials They’ve provide STL files, as well as lots more information (and even some things they would do differently) if you want to build your own 40-triangle model.