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Eva Yu
GAT/IDS 9B
17 January 2017
Origube
Making a cube in a cube is a lot harder than expected. This project requires the
construction of an outer cube surrounding an inner cube. It takes time, precision, and patience.
Of those 2 cubes, the volume and surface area can be calculated. The same can be said for the
empty space between the 2 cubes and the space when the inner cube is taken out. The objective
of this project is to be able to assemble, and find the volume and surface area of a cube inside a
cube.
Figure 1. Step 1
To start off, take a square piece of paper with the color facing up. For this
Fold the sheet of paper in half, so the white side is shown. This does not apply if the
paper has 2 sides with color. However, it would be more confusing since this example only
shows 1 color. After folding, the width of the paper becomes 3 in. because it is half of the
previous width.
Figure 3. Step 3
Open the piece of paper up and fold it in up to the halfway crease. Do the same thing
again with the other half. The two flaps end up having a width of 1.5 in. each.
Figure 4. Step 4
Fold the upper right hand corner up to the top of the paper and repeat with the lower left
corner. The width of the flap that was folded still stays as 1.5 in. and the fold (shown above)
forms a 45-45-90 triangle (special right triangle) making the leg opposite the 90-degree angle
1.52 in.
Figure 5. Step 5
Flip the sheet of paper over so the fold line is visible. Take the lower right corner and fold
up to the top part of the paper forming another 45-45-90 triangle that is slightly bigger. This
causes the diagonal to become 32 in. since it is the leg opposite of the 90-degree angle. Repeat
The piece of paper should look like this after repeating the folding process shown in
Figure 5. The length of the lower left corner is now 3 in. since it is half of 6 in. (the length of the
piece of paper).
Figure 7. Step 7
Fold the piece of paper in half with the length 32 in. at the bottom up to the other
diagonal that is also 32 in. Now, the length of the bottom is 32 in. and the top is 1.52 in.
Fold the white diamond that is positioned on the right in half towards the left direction.
Next, flip the paper over to the other side and do the same thing. The side with 3 in. is the same
length as shown in Figure 6 because it is half of the original length. The diagonal formed from
The bottom length is still 32 in. and the top length is still 1.52 in. since it is half of the
bottom length (shown in Figure 7). Subsequently, repeat steps 1 to 8 and create a total of 12
The measurements also need to be found for the inner cube. To construct, take a square
Fold the paper in half with the color shown outside. Like mentioned before, if the paper
that is being used has 2 colors, it does not matter which side is shown. The length is 6 in. and the
Unfold the piece of paper and fold the piece in up to the crease made previously. The
length stays the same while the width of the flaps is now 1.5 in. because it is half of 3 in.
Figure 13. Step 12
Flip the paper over to the other side. Then, fold the lower right corner up to the top part of
the paper until the lines meet forming a triangle. The sides are 3 in. because they are half of the
original length. The folding also creates a 45-45-90 triangle so the leg opposite of the 90-degree
angle is now 32 in. Rotate the paper 180 degrees and repeat the process of folding the corner up
Take the flap on the right and fold down and to the left at the same time (simultaneously)
towards the vertical segment. Do the same for the flap after rotating the piece of paper 180
degrees. 45-45-90 triangles are formed from the folded flaps, causing the length to be 1.52 in.
because it is opposite the 90-degree angle. To find the hypotenuse, multiply 2 from the leg since
After making one of the pieces needed to make the inner cube, it is known that the edge
of the cube is going to be 1.52 in. Repeat steps 9 to 14 and create a total of 6 pieces in order to
The figure above shows how to find the surface area without subtracting the empty space.
Figure 18. Finding the Surface Area of the Empty Space from Outer Cube
Figure 18, above, demonstrates how to find the surface area for the empty space of the
Figure 19. Finding Surface Area of Outer Cube Without the Empty Space
The figure above displays how to solve for the surface area excluding the empty space.
The surface area of the outer cube without the empty space is 81 in. 2
Figure 20 shows how to find the surface area of the inner cube, which is 27 in. 2
TSA = SA Cube Outer Cube + SA Inner Cube Total Surface Area Formula of Whole Cube
TSA = 81 + 27
Cube Substitution Property
TSA = 108 in.
Cube
2
Addition Property
As shown above, shows the total surface area of both cubes. The total surface area of the
When finding the total surface area, it is important to use the same formulas. To recap,
what was shown on how to formulate the TSA started with finding the surface area of the outer
cube without subtracting the empty space (Figure 17). Then, finding the surface area of the
empty space (Figure 18) and finding the surface area of the outer cube without the empty space
(Figure 19). Following, the inner cubes surface area can now be found as shown in Figure 20.
Finally, this adds up to find the total surface area of both cubes (Figure 21), which is 108 in. 2
Above shows how to find the volume of the outer cube. The volume of the outer cube is
542 in. 3
The table above demonstrates how the volume is found for the inner cube, which is
6.752 in. 3
Figure 24, above, displays how to find the volume of the empty space. The ending result
is 47.25 in. 3
As said before, it is important to use the same formulas when finding the volume. To find
the TV, start off by finding the volume of the outer cube (Figure 22) and inner cube (Figure 23).
Then as shown on Figure 24, subtract the inner cubes volume from the outer cube in order to
To conclude, some difficulties occurred while in the process of finding the surface area
and volume. The biggest difficulty was creating the outer cubes pieces. The folding had to be
perfect or the calculations would be invalid. When folding the piece of paper in half, sometimes
the other half is not perfectly aligned with the top. This caused the folds after that part to also not
be perfect. Constructing the outer cube took a long time and was easy but hard. Having to figure
out how to put the pieces together was the hard part. But after getting the hang of it, it got easy.
Some recommendations would be to use time wisely and calmly fold. If too stressed, this might
be result as the folds to be even more uneven. Along the way, some things can be learned, such
as typing a square root (Alt 251) and origami. The final total surface area of the cube in a cube is
108 in. and the volume of the cube in a cube is 47.25 in. Nevertheless, an object has other
2 3
components rather than itself like empty space, total surface area, and volume.