I woke up this morning and thought, “I need a challenge for breakfast.” Because the only thing more tasty than oatmeal, is a challenge.
This tutorial is only for the advanced users. I honestly don’t think you can make a dodecahedron in Solidworks without knowing the exact coordinates of each point before hand.
When you’re done, it will look like this:
- Start by making a regular pentagon with a side length of 20mm. Yes there is a tool for that in Onshape, believe it or not.
- Loft two opposing sides to create a surface. Use another loft to get the remaining portion of the pentagon.
A Pentagon of Doom to start with - And now, for something completely different… Create an assembly and import your surface (not the lame-o Microsoft Surface).
- Right click and fix the surface in place. Now import surfaces 1 at a time, and add a Revolute constraint on matching edges of surfaces.
- Repeat 10 more times until you have something that resembles a Dodecahedron.
It’s really shaping up - Now on the far right there is a button for creating a Part Studio In-Context. Then click on the origin of the assembly. A Part Studio will appear with the ghost images of your dodecahedron.
- Use the “Transform” command. I put “Transform” in quotes because no actual transformation will occur. Hit the drop down, and select Copy In Place. Now select all 12 sides.
- Use the Enclose command on all 12 sides. Violà! Onshape is instrumental in creating this platonic solid.
Plato would be proud Check it out here.