A simple method of crystal model construction

Abstract

Educ., 14, 140 (1937)) has described the preparation of simple models from marbles. These work very well for the construction of close-packing and other simple models but have obvious disadvantages for large or complex models.

Crystal Models Made from Clear Plastic Boxes and Their Use in Determining Avogadro's Number

“…A survey of the literature finds many creative unit cells: ones made from Styrofoam balls and rods (2), pom pons (3), stacked square tissue culture Petri dishes containing marbles (4), balsa wood (5), tinned copper wire and galvanized iron (stereographic projection model) (6 ), stacked Plexiglas shelves containing marbles (7 ), polystyrene foam spheres (8), "toy playing marbles" (9), paper and cellophane (10), sponge rubber balls and oak doweling (11), light-emitting diodes (12), and cork balls glued to Plexiglas (13). All but one of these cells contain whole atoms on the exterior and consequently cannot be stacked to make an extended lattice.…”

Tangible symmetry elements and space-group models to guide from molecular to solid-state composition

“…This is facilitated by the fact that structural data can be retrieved from open access databases and converted into printable formats using freely available software (Moeck et al, 2014b;Kaminsky et al, 2014). However, even though a great number of creative unit-cell models for all kinds of teaching purposes have been reported (Bindel, 2002;Cady, 1997;Elsworth et al, 2017;Kennard, 1979;Komuro & Sone, 1961;Kildahl et al, 1986;Laing, 1997;Lenzer et al, 2019;Li & Worrell, 1989;Ma et al, 2020;Mann, 1973;Mattson, 2000;Olsen, 1967;Scattergood, 1937;Sein & Sein, 2015;Seymour, 1938;Sunderland, 2014;Westbrook & DeVries, 1957), to the best of our knowledge no models have been made available so far to foster students' abilities in spatial imagination in the contexts of translational symmetry and space groups.…”

Molecular models with free rotation

“…More accurate "close-packed" models having more nearly exact relative intemuclear distances and atomic sizes such as the Stuart (2) (Fisher-Hirschfelder) models suffer also from the inability to duplicate molecular coiling and twisting motions; they also fall apart too easily in handling and the metal tapered joints do not always permit the wooden spheres with flat faces to be connected at the correct distance apart. Scattergood (3), Seymour (4), and Hauser (1) have described methods of constructing "close-packed" models of crystals, but in all these models the spheres representing the atoms are fixed rigidly together. Mack (5) made a flexible model of a fragment of rubber by joining alumi-num spheres on metal axles.…”