Cardboard Tensegrity Table

Tensegrity is a property of structures in which all members are isolated, yet they experience compressive forces due to them being connected through tensive elements such as cables, resulting in a stable structure. Some examples of tensegrity structures are included, most notably, the human spine, which was quite surprising to me.

For this project, I teamed up with Thomas Wong, another Mechanical Engineering student in SJSU's chapter of ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), to recreate a basic tensegrity structure with cardboard.

Cardboard

Box Cutter/Hobby Knife

Toothpicks

Hot Glue

Cutting Mat

Time and Effort

We chose to make a tensegrity structure featuring a triangular base and two members that meet in the center. We also figured that using a single sheet of cardboard wouldn't provide adequate strength to withstand the tension forces, so we decided to use multiple layers of cardboard.

After measuring the thickness of the cardboard and determining how many layers each component would have, we made a CAD mockup in Fusion 360.

Using the CAD model, we created stencils for each part (the top portion, bottom portion, and the center members). Using these stencils, we traced and cut the pieces out of the cardboard.

We had to figure out the best way to manufacture the structure as we went along. We started by gluing some of the layers together. The toothpicks would be used to fasten the fishing line to the cardboard (sort of like the T-shaped Garvey fasteners you find on clothes in a store). We wrapped the fishing line around the toothpicks and poked holes in the cardboard to feed the line through.

We then hot-glued the center member to the bottom portion, putting fishing line through it as well.

We assembled the other half, leaving the top exposed so that we could tension and hot-glue the fishing line from the bottom portion. We also found that tensioning the central member before the 3 corners made the process a lot easier.

After some adjusting to the tensioning, we hot-glued everything together and it worked! As you can see, it can hold small items like a computer mouse, but we haven't tested it enough to see how much weight it can hold (which I assume isn't a lot).

Overall, we enjoyed putting this together and it was worth the 4 hours it took to plan, design, and manufacture the structure (not sarcasm). In the future, I would like to get these pieces laser cut so that we don't have to go through the painstaking process of tracing and cutting the cardboard by hand. Also, it would be cool to add laser engravings or some sort of decoration to give it more personality. Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to read through this Instructable, and make sure to follow for more! :D