Christmas is just around the corner, so I was thinking “wreath” shapes and stumbled across an astonishing torus made entirely of Tom Hull’s “Phizz” units:

The structure is based on twisted units that combine in 5’s (a pentagon has positive curvature), 6’s (a hexagon has zero curvature) and 7’s (a heptagon has negative curvature).

The inside has 10 heptagons and hexagon spacers, the outer rim has 10 pentagons with hexagon spacers and the rest of the shapes are hexagons.

This shape does my head in – heptagons take up more paper yet less space in the shape … huh? Negative curvature makes the inside of the donut by making a series of “saddles” which is pretty neat. Continue reading →