Building Block: Truncated Octahedron

thingiverse

A simple Construction brick. derived from this more general tool:http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:409443 Multiple of these bricks can be connected with short pieces of ~3mm diameter filament. Tip: If the bricks doesn't go well together the first time they are assembled a mini screw clamp can be helpful. This brick has 14 faces to it's nearest neighbors. (six cube faces and eight octahedral faces) Background: This brick is the Wiegner-Seiz cellhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%E2%80%93Seitz_cell of the body-centered cubic crystal systemhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body-centered_cubic . The three main surface orientations (111) (110) (100) can be built without staircase effects. Notation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_index (100) surfaces with squares up need a second layer to close the square holes. (110) surfaces with edges between hexagons up are easiest to build. (111) surfaces with hexagons up need two layers to be built and a third layer to close the hexagonal holes. . This polyhedron is one that lends itself well for the organisation of future atomically precise manufactured products.http://apm.bplaced.net/w/index.php?title=Microcomponent#super_microcomponent_structures