ZOME – The Answers, Before you ask

 

 

The 600 Cell

 

 

[REF]

‘There is something Irritating about doing something right by accident’ – S.Rogers

 

Mission

 

Stimulate creativity, discovery and fun; Build a strong company that enhances learning; Plant the seeds of future architecture & technology; Service & respect each person touched by our company.

 

Philosophy

 

To stimulate an awareness and understanding within our global community of the human relationship with our natural and mathematical world, as well as an appreciation for the uniqueness and beauty of nature as expressed in geometry through the use of the sixty-one zone structural system.

 

To endeavor to provide a tool which stimulates in all ages curiosity and awareness, broadminded perspectives and continuing, self-motivated participation and exploration while fostering mutually-beneficial relationships with the entire Zome community.

 

To pioneer in the use and development of all emerging facets of Zome, the building toy, as well as embracing all current and future technologies that spring forth from the sixty-one zone structural system.

 

History

 

The mathematical universe lives all around us. New ideas, forms, and methods exist everywhere, ready to be introduced into human culture. It just takes someone who can see what is there and make something out of it.

 

Steve Baer was one of those people.

 

Baer was fascinated with the dome geometry introduced by architect R. Buckminster Fuller. In the early 60’s, he was an occasional guest at an experimental community, Drop City [REF], near Trinidad, CO. The founders of Drop City included “drop artists” Clark Richert, and Gene and Jo Ann Bernofsky.

 

In planning the community, the founders discovered that domes have their limitations as living quarters. They must have circular floors. There are many edges and joints, with many different edge lengths. They are fairly complicated to construct, and changing their shape to fit specific needs upsets their structural integrity.

 

Having become fascinated with polyhedra after seeing semi-regular figures his wife constructed with a child’s toy while they lived in Zurich, Baer invented a new system, which could build a vast array of shapes with a much smaller inventory of parts. The word Zome was coined by Steve Durkee of the Lama Foundation, which first published Baer’s Dome Cookbook, and Steve Baer. Domes could be designed with Zome geometry (not true geodesics, but similar), as well as homes with more fanciful shapes. A real strength of Zome constructions is the relative ease with which additions can be made.

 

The small Zome that resided at Drop City is gone now, along with the rest of the community structures, but Baer’s current house in Corrales, NM was built using the Zome concept.

 

Zomeworks, incorporated in 1969, raised capital to make playground climbers, structures and the Zometoy modeling sets. These were developed and patented in 1969 and 1970 by Zomeworks Corporation and Stanley Marsh III or Amarillo, Texas. Zometoy used plastic ball joints and wooden dowel struts. It was demonstrated at the New York Toy Fair in 1971. Zometoy made the same forms as the current Zome System. However, it was relatively crude and inconvenient.

 

In 1979 destiny unites the brilliance of Marc Pelletier and Paul Hildebrandt.

 

Marc Pelletier, an avid geometer and fan of Steve Baer’s work, and Paul Hildebrandt, who was very interested in developing alternative housing structures, find a unique balance of talents that lead to developing the “impossible” connector ball, the marvel behind Zome geometry.

 

With a goal of making Zome geometry accessible even to 6 year olds, they set out to design and develop a toy that would ignite the imaginations of our future architects, scientists and engineers. Knowing that the geometry was so revolutionary that it will change the shape of our world, from the inner architecture of the human mind to structures in outer space, Pelletier and Hildebrandt began their work in Boulder, Colorado.

 

It took them over ten years. They developed an ingenious design for a connector ball. They designed a set of struts in specific shapes and colors that both children and adults could easily handle. At that point, they had to find someone who would buy the idea and manufacture the toy.

 

The toy makers who saw it smiled and said nobody could ever mold the connector. Hildebrandt and Pelletier took their design to toolmakers all over the world. Even in Germany and Japan, toolmakers just shook their heads. In the USA, nobody would touch it.

 

Knowing the importance of their work, Hildebrandt and Pelletier decided to learn injection molding for themselves.

 

In 1988, Bob Nickerson takes on the challenge.

 

Bob Nickerson, an expert machinist in Denver, Colorado, saw their design and opened the window of opportunity by telling Pelletier and Hildebrandt that he believed he could machine the “impossible” tool. Hope restored, Hildebrandt and Pelletier founded BioCrystal, Inc. to raise capital and manufacture Zome. Over a period of several years’ work machining the parts for the most complicated plastic injection mold ever designed, and with the donation of an ancient injection molding machine from the University of Colorado, they were finally ready to put it all together and do the first test run.

 

The first ball came out perfect, the very first time. A revolutionary visualization tool was born. It was April 1, 1992.

 

For some time, Zome remained a bit of a secret from the general public. The product spoke for itself, however, among mathematicians and research scientists, who could immediately see uses for Zome in their work. The system, with math based on Golden Section proportions and 2-, 3-, and 5-fold symmetries, applies to an amazing variety of scientific pursuits. Linus Pauling used Zometool for his work. NASA started using the tool for AIDS virus research in space, and for a space station project. It was and still is the only system capable of modeling quasicrystals (an inorganic crystal with 5-fold symmetry, long thought an impossibility by crystallographers), even before they were discovered in the mid-1980’s. Mathematicians such as Roger Penrose of Oxford University and John Conway of Princeton University use Zome to model complex geometric forms.

 

For several years, Paul and Marc experimented with ways to get Zometool into the hands of the people it was designed for: kids. They needed to demonstrate to parents and teachers the profound way that Zome differs from other construction toys. Eventually, they found some dedicated partners in this effort.

 

In 1996, two people founded Zometool Marketing, Inc.

 

Yasu Kizaki, an international marketing specialist, fell in love with the product at a trade show. He and his partner, Elizabeth Montana, decided to devote their careers to promoting this marvelous toy to a wider market. They greatly expanded Zometool’s sales in the US and internationally.

 

In 1997, the two companies merged into one entity, Zometool, Inc.

 

Zometool, Inc. was positioned to spread the word about this wonderful design tool to every corner of the world.

 

In 2000, Zome adds new GreenLine component.

 

A significant addition is made to the Zome components. Green Lines were first associated with Steve Baer’s 31-zone system by Clark Richert, circa 1970. Working independently in Paris, the late artist, Jean Beaudoin, discovered the 30 green lines in relationship to the 15 blue lines at about the same time. Zome green struts were designed by Jean Beaudoin and Fabien Vienne in Paris.

 

Two mathematicians, Professor George Hart

[REF]

and Henri Picciotto, co-author an advanced geometry book called, Zome Geometry, published in October 2000. This is the first publication to include green lines.

 

With the introduction of Green Lines one can increase the number of “buildable” directions from 62 to 121 ­ from each connector ball. Green Lines offer more challenging building and more advanced model making.

 

Today, there are thousands of Zome fans of all ages throughout the world.

 

Linking the geometry of the ancient Greeks to quantum physics, from inner space to outer space, Zome is positioned to be the basis of spatial interpretation for the new millennium.

 

Extremely sophisticated, yet easy to use, Zome has something for everyone.

 

Zome will change the architecture of your mind.

 

‘I love it when a plan comes together’ – Hannibal Smith [George Peppard [REF]]