Background

Heinz Strobl www.snapology.eu

In November 2010 I was invited to give a talk at Jena University on the occasion of a colloquium about teaching maths with origami. As I have some experience in making paper models of polyhedra using my Snapology technique I choose this as the topic of my talk. My goal was to instruct beginning maths teachers in less than half an hour how to make models of any convex polyhedra at almost no expenses using only their own hands and some precut paper strips.

This document is the HTML version of an English translation of the Power Point slides I used for my presentation. There are minor differences between the PP and HTML versions, mainly in the treatment of animations. Whereas in the PP version animation of text and pictures was synchronously operated by the lecturer, in the HTML version all text on one page is static and when there are animated pictures, the animation is automatic and repeated endlessly. This is to relieve the user from too many clicks and to allow him to proceed at his own speed.

The HTML version is also augmented by hyperlinks that allow quick navigation. E.g. a click on Snapology in the header line will bring you back to the summary page. From there you can navigate directly to the desired chapter. Further hyperlinks allow self-evident navigation. To view the document page by page use the links < previous and next > in the lower right hand corner. If the mouse hovers over a term or region for which additional information is available a window containing this information will pop up.

In the mini workshop I provided the participants with three 1x6 and one 1x4 strips and they folded at least one specimen of each module type necessary to construct any convex polyhedron. To finish complete polyhedra is only a matter of diligence and following the rules given in this document.

Have fun with Snapology!

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