Built by an inexpert woodworker, this self-measuring object bares all its flaws for the world to see.

Each face is constructed from 30 meter sticks, using 60 miter cuts, 294 drill holes, 147 wire pegs, and 9 small hinges. It's held together mostly by the friction inherent in the myriad carpentry imperfections — all conspicuously apparent against the disciplined regularity of the millimeter scale. Were the nail-holes all perfectly aligned, the whole thing would instantly collapse in a heap.

Fabricating this object raised some interesting questions. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the the convex regular polyhedra — Platonic solids. As such, it is arguably the most perfect and pure of all flat-surfaced solids. When built from hand-fashioned materials, I wonder: Can such mathematical perfection be expressed using ragged and imperfect media? Can the idea of perfection even be conceived by an imperfect mind? Is it our familiar, unpolished edges that bind us together and keep us whole? Or are they simply the hallmark of our unfinished interior work — all the obstructions and attachments that prevent us from knowing what the saint and the arahant know?