Zometool Intro

What You Should Know… Enter The Zometool Zone Experiment with the Zometool pieces for about 15 minutes. Then write 3 observations in your daily journal. The Zometool Zone

What You Should Know… Now, let’s determine a set of common words to use about the pieces. First, let’s take a look at the long thin pieces. We’ll call them “struts.” You’ll notice that the struts come in three different colors, in three different sizes with three different shapes on the ends. Let’s call the colors blue, yellow and red. The sizes can be small, medium, and large, and the ends will be rectangle, triangle, and pentagon. You’ll notice that the blue only has the rectangle shape on the ends, the yellow only has triangles, and the red only has pentagons.

What You Should Know… The other pieces are white and spherically shaped. We’ll call them “balls” or “nodes”. Certainly you noticed that they have rectangular, triangular, and pentagonal holes in them. Of course, you can only put the correct shape on the strut into the correct hole on the ball. Sometimes, you’ll need to gently arch or curve the strut, but don’t try to force a fit – Zometools are designed for ease in construction. If a strut doesn’t feel like it will go in easily, it’s not meant to go in. Colors: blue, yellow, red Shapes: rectangle, triangle, pentagon Sizes: small, medium, large Pieces: struts and balls or nodes

What You Should Know… If you’re trying to figure out what shape strut might connect two nodes, here’s what you do: with one eye, look through one node to the node you’d like to connect. You should see one shape that lets you see through to the other side. Here’s a short video you can watch to help you understand this idea: