LEGO Sphere
Though it's impossible to make a perfect sphere out of rectangular blocks, it's possible to come close. The following spheres were made entirely of LEGO® plates—the flat LEGO elements (one-third as tall as bricks) with studs (bumps) on top. Even on a small scale, these are surprisingly good approximations of spheres. They are made in the style credited to Bruce Lowell, with six identical panels around a central, cubic core. Bram's sphere generator produced diagrams for the specific models, and I assembled them with LEGO plates.
The first sphere has a diameter of ten studs. Each of the six panels is a different color so it's easy to see how they fit together. The panels are attached to each other with angle brackets on the inside. The green panel is shown below by itself. Most of the panels have 14 pieces, but the number of pieces varies somewhat due to the sizes and colors of plates that I had available. Including the brackets on the inside, the sphere is made from about 120 pieces.
The second sphere is only a hemisphere because I wanted to build it larger and didn't have enough pieces for a full sphere. It has a diameter of 14 studs and contains about 200 pieces. The photo of the bottom of the hemisphere shows how it contains a hollow core. In this sphere, the length of each side of the cubic core is eight studs. The white brackets hold the panels together.
