This is the true reason for my previous project on Platonic Solids. I was playing around with map projections, and became a tag smitten with Buckminster FulIer’s Dymaxion Projection.

It’s able to do a map projection with surprisingly little distortion:

Image from Wikipedia here. 

I laser cut the ‘gore’s onto wood tiles:

Living in the 21st Century is very convenient. I was able to download the SVG from Wikipedia, and it took about hour’s work to get something suitable for lasercutting. Not perfect, but way better than tracing manually. 

The vertices are sized to allow an M3 screw to hold without needing any nuts, or pointy self-tapping screws.

I quite liked the aesthetic of the cap heads, compared to the countersunk or dome heads used in the last post. 

Files are here for anyone that wants to make their own:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1871829

(Note: this is decended from this image here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map#/media/File:Fuller_projection_rotated.svg
Made by Eric Gaba – Wikimedia Commons user: Sting)

I’m not sold on the Dymaxion being the default map projection for humanity, but it has some interesting properties, and it was certainly a fun build.