robinhoustonMar 11

TIL. In April 1974, in the middle of the night, a small group of conspirators secretly installed a large tensegrity icosahedron made from discarded telephone poles on the campus of Twente University in the Netherlands.

It’s still there. People call it Het Ding (“the thing”).

https://www.utwente.nl/en/alumni/inspiring-alumni/ut-canon/stories/het-ding/

Show threadJos GelukMar 12
@robinhouston that is, of course, a mere summary of that other Thing, the Needle Tower by Kenneth Snelson. In the garden of the Kröller-Müller Museum.
Show threadKees KremerMar 12
@josgeluk @robinhouston I lived there, a wonderfully stimulating environment. Older students told me that a concrete container (precisely calculated) had been sunk in the pond of the (then) applied mathematics building. It would surface at the time of the new moon (the sun and moon are in direct line from the Earth). Unfortunately, the container never surfaced.
Show threadBanda Bassotti
Even a bit of dirt or resistance from sticking in mud would throw that off. I think the only way to get that to work is if your body of water is large enough to have tides.
Mar 13 at 10:09amWeb