In class we have been conducting a Polyhedron Investigation. Poly means many and hedron means bases in Greek so then polyhedron means many bases.
First, with a partner, we investigated the cube and square based pyramid using paper nets. We found out that a cube has 6 faces, 12 edges and 8 vertices, and the square based pyramid has 5 faces, 8edges and 5 vertices. We recorded our information and discovered that for both shapes if we added the faces and vertices then subtracted 2 it would equal the number of edges. Therefore, our formula was (f +v)-2 = e. Then we investigated more 3D shapes to see if the pattern actually worked.
We made polyhedrons using Clixi to create the hexagonal pyramid, the cuboid, hexagonal prism, the cylinder, the octagonal pyramid, the sphere, the pentagonal pyramid, the triangular prism, the triangular based pyramid, octahedron, cone, rectangular pyramid, pentagonal prism and octagonal prism. The formula worked for the majority of the shapes. We realised that the normal definition of face, edges and vertices are not appropriate for a sphere. We had lots of fun investigating polyhedrons.
By Aashrith and Marcus
