There aren't many things that say utopian scifi like geodesic domes. So one sunny day back in 2017 I decided to build one. It went pretty well - eventually!

Version 1

This was the first iteration - after reading up a bunch on how domes work, mostly from http://geo-dome.co.uk/ I wanted to try and build just the basic "football" shape of interconnected pentagons and hexagons. It didn't quite work out how I planned.

Version 2

Back to the drawing board, and the most obvious problem was that the joints just weren't stiff enough. Adding a second outer ring to the joint helped, but still wasn't quite enough to let it stand unaided. I was going to have to bite the bullet and fill in the missing triangles if I wanted it to hold together.

Version 3

After the first couple of "learning experiences", I added some new power tools to my collection - cutting all the pipes with a hand saw was getting a bit tedious - and started work on fleshing out the structure. The 5 and 6 way joints were immediately more stable than the previous versions, and when slotted into place in the existing structure it started to take the proper shape.

After correcting for some early mis-measurements I soon had a pretty impressive 4m diameter truncated bucky-ball sitting on my lawn with a comfy 2m of headroom, and barring a minor incident involving a wind storm and a hedge it's still standing today!

At some point I keep meaning to add a cover, but that's proving tricky so far.

See you around!
Jonny