There are few geodesic decorations for the holidays, other than a very popular geodesic gingerbread house last year. I started thinking up of different ideas, except I wanted to go different and outside. It was also a way to use all those holiday lights I collected at yard sales throughout the summer.
I built a 4-foot (120 cm) diameter 3v 5/9 dome so I could easily go through standard doorways. The model was built with 1/2 inch EMT conduit. On top of it 5 “petal” sections were hinged so that they could open and close. Once all put together, a regular tarp fabric was put over the dome and I used a hot glue gun to affix the lights. For the petals I had some light curtains I found (12 inches wide X 6 feet long, or 30cm wide X 180cm long) and held in place with plastic tie-wraps (zip ties).
To hold the petals at a specific height I ran a thin wire around all tips of the petals. This spreads the tension across all petals, keeping them at the same height. To adjust the height I simply wrapped the wire a few extra turns at each tip around the tip (if you look closely you will see that I left the bolts sticking out).
The goal is to build a 30-foot version of the snowflake dome and use some winch with airplane cable to extend and retract the petals. The green effect was created using a regular green spotlight under the structure.
If anyone has suggestions for improvements, please feel free to do so! We’d love to have a showcase page for holiday decorations based on geodesics.
