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Abstract

Unfolding Humanity is a 12 foot tall, 30 foot wide, 2 ton interactive metal sculpture that calls attention to the tension between technology and humanity. This sculpture was conceived, designed, and built by a large group (80+) of faculty, students, and community volunteers at the University of San Diego (USD). The piece is a dodecahedron whose pentagonal walls unfold under human power, an engineered design that alludes to Albrecht Dürer's 500-year-old unsolved math problem on unfolding polyhedra. When closed, the mirrored interior of the sculpture makes visitors feel as though they are at the center of the universe. The idea for the sculpture began with two USD mathematics professors, they recount their journey elsewhere (Devadoss & Hoffoss, 2019). This narrative focuses on the story of bringing their vision to a reality.

Author/Artist Bio

Gordon Hoople (Engineering) and Nate Parde (Theater) are professors at the University of San Diego (USD). The remaining authors are current students and recent graduates from the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering at USD. All of the authors contributed in a substantial way to the design and construction of the sculpture.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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