The model
To provide the possibility of "concretely" visualizing our project and as a further proposal for an educational activity, we worked on a relatively small scale model: it represents the Solar System (therefore the Sun, the eight planets, and some of their moons, plus Pluto) and a quarter of the hypothetical ellipsoid we designed.
For obvious reasons, the model is not to scale and has the dimensions of 2m1m0.60m (to want to make it to scale, considering that our Sun has a diameter of 14cm, we would have had to use a base about 60m long…).
It is certainly an interesting didactic proposal for elementary schools, as an introductory project to the study of the solar system, and also in secondary schools as a practical study on the construction and qualities of the dome (further on it is reported how it was built) .
The materials used are:
Polycarbonate panel (honeycomb) 2m1m.
Black carpet of the same size as the panel.
Transparent plastic sphere, diameter 14 cm.
Cotton.
2 yellow LEDs.
Electrical cable.
2 1.5 volt batteries
3 wooden spheres, diameter 2 cm.
2 polystyrene spheres, diameter 4.5 cm.
2 wooden spheres, diameter 4 cm.
Pins for sewing.
Sticks for skewers.
3 wooden rods, length 3m.
11 iron rods, length 1.5m.
Aluminum oven lining, 6m 2
Indelible markers of various colors.
Scotch tape.
Glue (super glue, hot glue, acrylic).
For the creation we colored the various spheres, based on their size, in order to make them as similar as possible to the planets, inserted the LEDs inside the plastic sphere, then connected them with the electric cable to the batteries and to an on switch /off, to then cover the sphere with tufts of orange colored cotton. After that we used the sewing pins, coloring them, to represent the moons of the planets, Pluto and Mercury, then put all the celestial bodies on the supports, of different heights made with the black colored skewer sticks. Once the supports were created, we covered the alveolar panel with the carpet, indicated the points where to position the planets, then punched the same to insert the celestial bodies on the panel.
Finally we created the ellipsoid by making the three major ellipses intersect, created with the wooden rods pointed from side to side of the panel, and then tied to the iron ones in order to give support to the structure (above all this activity is a method of transversal teaching to directly understand what the principles and functions of the domes are), to then cover it with aluminum panels for ovens in order to give it a metallic appearance.
We insert below a gallery of images of our layout:
“Excuse the crudeness of this model, but we didn't have time to make it to scale”
1-Sun;
2-Mercury;
3-Venus;
4a-Earth, 4b-Moon;
5-Mars;
6a-Jupiter, 6b-Io, 6c-Europe, 6d-Ganymede, 6e-Callisto;
7a-Saturn, 7b-Titan, 7c-Enceladus;
8-Uranus;
9-Neptune;
10-Pluto;
11-Desideribus.
A big and special thanks to the architect Giuseppe Papillo who contributed and advised in the phases of choice of materials and their procurement, and in the design and construction of the model.