ABSTRACT
Students are taught how to make Ken Kawamura’s “Butterfly Bomb” and/or the “capped octahedron” bomb model. After making it, they learn how to make it explode. In order to repeat this trick, they need to become proficient in assembling it.
The Butterfly Bomb model’s final shape is that of a cuboctahedron whose triangle sides have become concave, pyramid-shaped chambers. Thus the construction of this model requires becoming familiar with this object. The model is also quite hard to put together, and so students have to work at understanding the object’s structure and symmetry to help them get it together. The explosive nature of the model provides motivation.
