PVC Pipe Tetrahedron

This is a tetrahedron made out of PVC pipe and common fittings.

I was at the local hardware store looking at the PVC fittings when I realized that if I used side outlet elbows and street elbows I could put them together to make an interesting shape.

Since then I have looked around on the internet for other PVC pipe tetrahedrons or other platonic solids and have found very few pages and fewer that use common fittings that can be found in most hardware stores. The two that come closest are "PVC Polyhedra" and "Do the Math!: Make PVC Polyhedra", both by the same author. Same content, just different intros due to where they are published.

Supplies

• 4 Side outlet elbows (3 female sockets)
• 12 Street elbows (1 female socket, 1 male spigot, 90 degrees)
• 6 sections of pipe all the same length

Step 1: Make the Vertices

Take one side outlet elbow (shown in green) and three street elbows (shown in orange.)

Plug the street elbows into each of the side outlet elbow's sockets at 45 degrees away from the direction the other two legs of the side outlet elbow.

Repeat to make all four vertices.

Step 2: Add Edges

Take the assembled vertices and sections of pipe (shown in blue.)

Plug the sections of pipe into the street elbows' sockets.

Step 3: Try Other Variations

Using street elbows makes the basic design easy to assemble and explain. With short sections of pipe, they can be replaced with any 90 degree fitting to make connections to other PVC pipe objects.