Bad eyesight & the Geodesic dome!

A kindergarten teaches gives her class an exercise to design structures from toothpicks and dried peas. The kids made box like structures with 90 degree corners, just like the houses they used to see.

Except for one kid.

He made a framework comprising of triangles.

A truss that was much more stronger and could carry more load than its right angled counterparts!

The kid was Buckminster Fuller (Bucky) who went on to become America’s leading architect, author, inventor and futurist.

What’s special about him?

Bucky was born with acute myopia that made for a severely bad eyesight. He developed his sense of touch to make up for the deficiency in eyesight. He sensed his triangle based structure to be much firmer than the square lattice. Bucky created extensive, complicated and stronger frameworks that covered a lot of ground with the minimal of materials.

When his classmates and teacher expressed their wonder at his design, He felt nothing special, as it was a natural choice for him based on his sense of touch!

A bad eyesight was turned into a blessing because otherwise Bucky would also have been influenced by what he would have seen everyday! https://lnkd.in/fEfPjxX