These are all the pieces for my first and third attempts. (My second attempt just broke) The left side was my first design. I was going to put six pieces together for each half of the ball, So that there would be a hexagon on the top and the bottom, each formed by six triangles. The connection between the two half was going to be a stripe, formed triangles parallelograms. But I wasn’t thinking right. I did not make the parallelograms bendable and as soon as I got my parts, I realized that the angle wasn’t right and the parallelogram really should be bendable.
After my first attempt, I decided to simplify things and there goes my second design. But when I cut it, the hinges broke as soon as I pick it up. In fact, I noticed the hinges were problematic when they were being cut, and I made adjustments during the laser cutter was working. I corrected my drawing in a bit of a rush, so in my third attempt, the connections were scaled poorly.
Now that I think about it, I have some ideas for improvements for my first design. I also have another idea that should be easier and would have made more sense. Like this:
Although I’ve been experiencing some failures, I still think I learned a lot. It was interesting to see how things could go wrong even if you thought it was quite secure.