To develop the raw Art Ball turned out to be more difficult than expected. The initial simple idea was to "copy" the Ball of Nations and add a few more pentagons or hexagons for allowing space for all member countries. However, to make the pentagons and hexagons just smaller and thereby add more of those for providing sufficient spaces for all SPICE member countries did not work. We had to learn that Archimedes and Plato already began to work on this issue and later generations of mathematicians devoted much time on the question how to divide a ball into (equal or similar) geometrical parts.

Finally, after much discussion and investigations colleagues of Larisa Brovarska in Poznan Science and Technology Park came up with the solution: An Art ball divided in triangles and squares. A Snub Cube as professionals call it. However, this was just the mathematical part of the work. Next step was finding the right material. Wood - the material of the Ball of Nations could not be used because customs regulations in a number of countries do not allow importing this material easily. First tries with plastic material resulted in a ball too heavy for transportation as flight luggage. Finally a special plastic material light and stable enough and not too heavy was identified. After further investigations regarding the possibilities to cut the material and to drill the needed holes production could begin. And finally a test for the procedure to assemble the art ball was made. The art work could begin...

The following pictures give an impression how the raw SPICE Art Ball 2006 began to exist.

The Snub Cube	Cutting scheme	Sketch triangle	layout
Assembling the SPICE Art Ball 2006 the first time