Archimedean

Solids
By: Nicole Strauss, Carrissa
Texley, and Marlene Stockton

What are Archimedean

Solids?
Archimedean solids belong to the
semiregular polyhedra family.
There are 13 Archimedean solids.
They are like platonic solids but differ
in the sense that they have two or
more regular polygon faces.
7 of the 13 Archimedean solids are
derived from platonic solids.

History
Archimedean solids are named after
the Greek mathematician,
Archimedes who discovered and
discussed them in a book that was
lost.
The solids were rediscovered
during the Renaissance period by
Johannes Kepler.

Truncation
According to Dictionary.com
truncation means
toshortenbycuttingoffapart;cut
short
By truncating certain platonic solids
you create 7 Archimedean solids
(which is what we will be doing
today).
Different Archimedean solids can be
made but truncating the same

Eulers Formula
Do you think Eulers Formula holds
true for Archimedean solids?

Unearthing Archimedes'
Lost Solids
5th Grade (but can be adapted for middle
school as well).
The topic of our activity is finding
Archimedean solids. The purpose is to
prove that seven of the Archimedean solids
come from truncating Platonic solids and
show the relationship between these two
classes of polyhedra.

 The standard we are addressing in this

activity is a NCTM Geometry standard
for 3-5 grades, which states that
students should be able to;
Analyze characteristics and properties
of two- and three- dimensional geometric
shapes and develop mathematical
arguments about geometric relationships
and should Investigate, describe, and
reason about the results of subdividing,
combining, and transforming shapes.

 We think that this standard applies to

our activity because we are truncating,
which is a way of transforming, a
three-dimensional shape in order to
create a new three-dimensional shape.
It is also relevant to our activity
because students will be analyzing the
shapes they start with versus the ones
they end with, therefore leading them
to look closely at the various
characteristics and properties that
make up both figures.

 In a normal classroom this activity would

probably take 30-45 minutes, in our class
we foresee it taking about 15 minutes;
since our class is familiar with the
material and are skilled in building solids
from nets at this point.
The class should be split into six fairly
equal groups. Each group will need 3 nets
for the Platonic solids (should give them
3 different Archimedean solids when they
are finished), 3 nets for the finished
Archimedean solids, scissors, and tape.

 If this activity was implemented in a classroom we would

suggest that teachers do the following:
Break the lesson into 3 parts
Discuss Platonic solids
Build the Platonic solids
Truncate Platonic solids into Archimedean solids
This way the students are not overwhelmed with too much
information, and can focus on each section at one time.

If you go younger than 5th grade students might need

assistance in cutting out the nets and putting them
together due to dexterity issues.
A teacher might want to guide their students a little more
on where they should truncate in order to get the correct
Archimedean solids.

 To conclude the activity each group

can present a different Archimedean
solid to the rest of the class, and
explain from which Platonic solid
they got it. They can also go into
detail about what regular polygons
make up the faces, and the number
of edges and vertices their
Archimedean solid contains.