Geodesic Dome for 99

IN THE PROCESS OF BEING DOCUMENTED.

What's the Deal with Domes?

Geodesic domes have always occupied a special place in the heart of MIT, and of the Media Lab in particular. They are deeply solar punk in their modular archiecture and utopian ideals. Inspired by Jake, Sara and Agnes' dodecadome from a previous 99F, we decided to build a new one for the first outdoors 99F. Because the dome would be outside, we decided to go bigger in size.

Designing the Dome

The dome was designed for robustness: it was stress test to ensure multiple drunk people to could climb on it safely (although this behavior was discouraged at the party).

Most geodesic domes are designed to have a flat base by using a perfect hemisphere. This one was designed to have an additional layer of triangles below the halfway point, giving it a more upright form.

The final design was a 2V dome, 3.1 meters tall and 4.3 meters in diameter.

Fabricating the Dome

We cut the hub components on the Fab Light.

and folded them (18 degrees!) on the handbrake.

Then we cut the 2x4's down to size, and pre-drilled them with a 3D printed component.

Assembling the Dome

Partying in the Dome