how do you construct platonic or archimedean solids?

Question

i need instruction on constructing platonic or archimedean solids of a regular icosahedron or regular dodecahedron or truncated tetrahedron or cuboctahedron or truncated cube or octahedron
I can only use a compass and a ruler

Answer 1

Compass and straightedge construction isn't really done in three dimensions. Most likely what you need to do is construct a net (a set of regular polygons) that can be folded to make the shape in question. For example the tetrahedron would be four equilateral triangles (which you probably know how to construct). You can make the net by simply constructing one large equilateral triangle, bisecting all three sides, and connecting the midpoints to make a total of four equilateral triangles.

I did a search for "construct platonic solids". In addition to a link directly to your question, I came across a few other sites that might be useful to you.

http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath096.htm

http://documents.wolfram.com/v5/Demos/Notebooks/CoverImageConstruction.html

http://www.ahs.stark.k12.oh.us/Math/Gensburg/Platonic%20Solids/Instructional%20Website/Rubrics/06-inswebrub-constructions.htm

http://members.westnet.com.au/molinasantos/strands/Space/platonicsolids.pdf