Jitterbugs
Steel & Copper
Originally conceived of by Buckminster Fuller and first realized and named by Dennis Dreher, the ‘jitterbug’ is a naturally occurring, geometric transformation in which a polyhedron expands utilizing dihedral hinges before inverting and collapsing back into its original shape. There are three polyhedra that can naturally jitterbug: the octahedron (pictured right), the cuboctahedron and the icosadodecahedron (pictured below). I became fascinated by these forms in school and began making them out of wire and steel.
In 2009, after seeing an icosadodecahedral jitterbug I made, Dreher himself confirmed that it was the first one in existence. In 2010, it was purchased by RISD to be featured permanently in the Arthur Loeb Design Science Collection.
