Building Structures Through the Ages
The etymology of geometry comes from Ancient Greek from 2 words - "ge" which means "earth" and "metria" which means "measuring". There were 2 main pre-modern mathematical fields of learning - geometry and arithmetic which still hold great importance today. Indeed, Ancient Egyptians used geometric principles back as far as 3000BC in conjunction with equations to approximate the area of a circle. Euclid, who lived around the year 300BC is often called the "Father of Geometry". There have been many other great figureheads in the history of Geometry such as Pythagoras (500BC) and Archimedes of Syracuse (250BC) amongst others who have shaped modern day geometry and teaching.
One key area of geometry teaching is in architecture and buildings. There are numerous Ancient Structures based on geometric principles such as the Pyramids which is a tetrahedron which can easily be constructed used Polydron equilateral triangles. There are countless modern day structures which use geometry at their core. Take modern day bridges such as Tower Bridge (combined suspension and bascule) or Golden Gate Bridge (suspension bridge) as examples of how you combine shapes such as squares, triangles and rectangles to add core strength to structures.
La Défense image courtesy of Tourist Maker
Our Polydron Bridges pack allows you to build such bridges as truss, suspension, cantilever, drawbridge, cablestay, swing and bascule. Shapes and geometrical structures are even more apparent in modern day buildings such as the Pompidou Centre and La Défense arch in Paris, the CCTV building in Beijing and the Pentagon in USA. Most modern skyscrapers can easily be built with Polydron using a series of pentagons and squares, whereas the majority of houses can be built with Polydron squares, rectangles and triangles. It's a great classroom activity to let children build different structures and buildings and to let them explore which Polydron shapes they will need to use. Polydron gives a great start to all budding builders!