Large Light Up Flexagon

IT'S MY 50th INSTRUCTABLE!

And for it i wanted to Do something special. So, in this instructable I am taking the large flexagon up a level and making it illuminated. Originally I had hoped to enter this into the make it glow competition but it had a few set backs. these have been ironed out now and I know self praise is no praise but i am pretty happy with the finial product.

Its a pretty straight forward instructable, relatively cheap and, in my opinion, looks pretty damn good

Lets get started...

Materials

2 sheets of A2 frosted acetate

Coloured cellophane. I'm using 3 colours and keeping one plane but you can do more. or less :)

Double sided tape

Duct tape

1 set of plain colour LED battery operated fairy lights

Tools

Scissors

Craft knife

Ruler

Cutting mat

Glue dots (not pictured)

Measure out the dimensions of you battery pack and adjust the template so that it fits in the rectangle

Print it out or trace it off screen and cut it out

Lay your acetate out in landscape and mark off your triangles in 3 lengths of six and one of seven

Cut the lengths out.

One on of the lengths with six in it stick double sided tape along each edge and then on both sides of each triangles "diagonals"

Peel of the backing, lay out your cellophane and lay your length of triangles on it.

Using the craft knife trim off the excess cellophane.

Cut out the triangles.

Repeat with your other colours

Take the extra triangle from the row of seven and cut a triangle out of the center

you want it to be big enough to allow you access to the battery pack.

IMPORTANT NOTE! If you have a cat you may want to put them out of the room as chances are as soon as you have all the parts laid out it will decide to walk over them. mine did. Twice :\

At this point you need to decide what part of your flexagon you want outside. I opted for keeping the frosted side to the outside as i wanted a softer glow.

What ever side you want to the outside lay facing upwards as shown in the picture above trying to keep a couple of millimeters between each triangle.

Note that i kept the triangle with the "door" in it to the one end.

Place duct over the edges of the triangles, half and half on each edge.

Trim off any over hanging bits of tape

Flip over your assembled shape.

Place the battery pack at the end with the door and lay the lights out making sure there are a couple in with the battery pack. This string was long enough to double back on itself.

Use a glue dot to hold the lights in place at each end

Starting at one end pull in the edges so it forms a "pyramid" and use a small bit of tape to hold them in place.

Using a longer length of tape cover the entire edge.

Its a lot easier this way than trying to tape the whole edge at once.

Continue down the line until its like the shape in the picture above.

Take your last triangle and fold tape over the shorter edge and one of the long edges.

On the other long edge place some tape but dont fold it over.

Used this tape to stick it to the rest of the flexagon like a hinge

Use a smaller bit of tape to hold the door shut and act like a latch

Bring both ends round to meet each other and tape them together on both sides of the joint

Be sure that the tape doesn't interfere with your door.

And your done!

Not much else to say except that I really enjoyed the outcome of this and thing that it looks quite contemporary as well as soothing to play with.

I hope you enjoyed this instructable as much as i did and as always thoughts/comments/criticisms and even pictures of your own Light up flexagons are welcome in the comments below :)

Enjoy