DODECAHEDRON CARD TRICK

Editor's Note: This submission by Kiara B. ('16) is an artistic creation that uses an 
interesting geometric technique with playing cards to create a dodecahedron.

For my math exploration I created a rhombic dodecahedron and found the shape/pattern from George Hart’s YouTube page. The name of the video was called “Card Trick”. All King, Queen, and Jack cards in a deck were used, which meant there were 12 cards in total used to create this shape. By using a ruler I folded over the corners of each two sides of the card from right under the suit and letter to the opposite corner. At every point on the shape where 3 vertices meet there is a King, Queen, and a Jack. At every point on the shape where 4 vertices meet all suits in a deck are visible. I left one card untapped so that the shape could be seen from the inside.  This was a much harder project than I thought it was going to be. It took a lot of trials for the shape to finally fit this pattern. It was a hard challenge but really addicting and I kept going until I solved it.

Hoping to try it out yourself? Watch George Hart's Video and give it a go!