The Cubo-Octahedron

Ryan Jones & Dominic Poci

Mr. Scot Acre

GAT
4 February 2015

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The Cubo-octahedron

In geometry, a polyhedron is simply a three-dimensional solid which consists of a

collection of polygons, usually joined at their edges. The cubo-octahedron is a 3D polyhedron
with eight equilateral triangular faces and six square faces. It has 12 vertices and 24 edges. The
cubo is an Archimedean solid which are distinct from the Platonic solids, which are composed of
only one type of polygon. Archimedean solids are highly symmetric but are composed of two or
more types of regular polygons. In a cubo-octahedron every square is surrounded by 4 triangles
as seen in figure 1, and every triangle is surrounded by 3 squares as seen in figure 2. Surface area
would be the sum of all the shapes areas that are on the surface of the cubo-octahedron, while
volume is the measure of the amount of space inside a solid 3D figure, in this case the cubooctahedron. This paper will explain how to find the surface area, and the volume in 3 unique
ways. The given length for this cubo-octahedron is 24 centimeters.

http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/cuboctahedron.htm

Figure 1. Cubo Square Visual

Figure 2. Cubo Triangle Visual

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The edges of the cubo-octahedron are 122 centimeters, and that was found in a very
easy way. The base cube is used because the midpoints are taken on one adjacent side. Once the
midpoints are there, they become connected and form a triangle. You can now find the side
length as shown in the picture below.
Figure 3. The Side Length of the Cubo-Octahedron

Figure 3, above, shows how to find the side length in a picture. The orange line, which is
x, represents the length of the cube edge which is 24 centimeters. The line labeled 1/2x is the
segment that connects two midpoints and it is half of x which would be 12 centimeters. Now to
find the side length, the special right triangles postulate of 45-45-90 has to be used. In this
type of triangle, the two legs are always congruent and the hypotenuse is always multiplied by
2 of the legs. Thats why the leg is labeled 1/2x2. So when 12 is multiplied by 2, the
answer is 122 centimeters or 16.9706 centimeters. This number will always be the side
length, even for the triangles.

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The surface area is the sum of the area of all faces of a 3-D model such as the cubooctahedron and shouldnt be confused with volume which is how much space the model takes
up. The method to find the surface area of the cubo-octahedron will be shown below.

Figure 4. Finding the Area of a Triangular Face

The first step to finding the surface area of the whole cubo-octahedron is finding the area
of the triangular faces. The special right triangles postulate of 45-45-90 is going to be used in
this again. The formula to finding the area of a triangle is AT= ()*b*h (where AT= Area of
one triangle, b= the base of the triangle, and h= the height of the triangle). The base is already
known because it is the side length of 122 centimeters. To find the height is where the special
right triangle comes in. When the side length segment is bisected (meaning cut in half evenly),
the two segments made become 62 centimeters because 12/2 is 6. Since the two triangles made
are 45-45-90, the two legs are congruent so the height of the triangular face is also 62
centimeters. So now to fill in the formula, it would be AT=()*122*62 which makes 72
cm2. Now just multiply 72 by the number of triangular faces which is 8 so 72*8 which makes
the total surface area of all the triangles 576 cm2. Next you will have to find the area of a square.

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Figure 5. Finding Area of a Square

The formula for finding the area of a square is A=b*h. The base and height are
the same since it is a square and they are 122 cm because the sides are the side length. So when
you plug in the formula it should be A=(122)*(122) and the answer comes out as 288. Since
that is the area of only one square, you have to multiply it by all the squares so, 288*6 which is
1,728. That means the surface area of all the squares combined is 1,728 cm2. Now to find the
total surface area of the whole cubo-octahedron, you have to add the surface area of all the
squares combined and all the triangles combined. To recall, the surface area of the triangles was
576 so you add that with 1,728 to get 576+1,728 which is 2,304. That means the total surface
area of it all is 2,304 cm2.
To find the total volume in case 1 you will have to find the
volume of one of the corner pieces first. From there you will have
to subtract the volume of the corner pyramid from the volume of
the entire cube 8 times to get the volume of the cubo-octahedron.
The net as shown to the right is the corner piece of the cube. The
given side length is 24 cm and the cubo-octahedron bisects the

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length making the corner pyramid. The 3 outer edges of our corner pyramid
would be 12 cm because it is cut in half due to the cubos midpoint as seen in the
picture to the left. The internal 3 edges are 122 cm due to
the corner triangle being a 45-45-90 as seen to the right.
Now we can move on and find the volume. The triangular
pyramid is a right triangular pyramid because the corners meet at a 90
angle, or a right angle. Now that you have the dimensions, you can find the
volume of it using the formula Vp=(1/3)*Abhp (Let Vp= Volume of a
pyramid, Ab= Area of the base, and hp= height of the pyramid). To make things easier, you can
flip the pyramid over so the base is the right triangle so you dont have to find the height for the
pyramid because the side can be used as a height because it is at a 90 angle and not slanted.
Lets use x= 12 as an external edge because as explained earlier 24/2 is 12. Now the area of the
base of the pyramid needs to be calculated, we can do this easily. Let Apb = Area of the pyramid
base. We will also need the formula for area of a triangle.
Area = *(base)*(height)
We would substitute 12 as the base and height for the formula.
Area=*(12)*(12)
Apb=72 cm2
Now that we have the area and height, the volume can be found:
Vp=(72)(12)
Vp=288 cm3
Now that we have the volume of the corner pyramid we need to find the volume of the cube and
subtract them from each other. Cubes are a simpler task at finding the volume of. First we need

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to find the area of a square, the formula for this is As=b*h (Let As =Area of a square, and
b*h=Base*Height).
Since the side length is given to us is 24 and a cube has equal sides we can just do
As=24*24
As=576 cm2
The volume of a cube has a different formula which is. The formula would be Vc=Abhc (Let
Vc= Volume of a cube, Ab= Area of the base, and Hc= Height of the cube). For this you can
substitute 576 for the area since the area of one square is 576 cm2 and 24 as the height.
Vc=(576)(24)
Vc=13,824 cm3
Now that you have both the volume of the corner piece and of the entire cube, you subtract them
from each other to get the volume of the cubo-octahedron. There is an easier way of doing this
instead of subtracting 8 times. You can multiply the initial volume of the corner piece by 8 and
subtract it then because there are 8 corners on a cube. To recall, the volume of the pyramid was
288 so you have to multiple that by 8 (288*8) to make 2,304 cm3. Now you just subtract 13.824
and 2,304 (13,284-2,304) to get the volume of the whole cubo-octahedron to be 11,520 cm3.
The second way to find the volume of the cubooctahedron is to have a right square prism and attach four
rectangular pyramids to the lateral faces. As seen in the picture to
the right, b is the square prism and a is the rectangular
pyramid. The first step to finding the volume is finding the
dimensions of the two polyhedrons.

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Figure 6. Right Square Prism Net

Figure 6 is showing the net of the square prism,
so now you just have to find the dimensions of it. First,
when you fold the square prism into its shape, the two
squares would be the base and the four rectangles would
be the lateral faces. The edges of the two squares are the
side lengths of the whole octahedron so that means they
are 122 cm. In the picture to the right, the lines with one dash mark on them are all 122 cm
because since they all meet at a single edge, they have to be equal. The lines with two dash
marks are all 24 cm because the whole cubes height is equal to an edge length. Now you have to
find the dimensions of the rectangular pyramid.

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Figure 7. Net of Rectangular Pyramid

This net is made up of two equilateral triangles, two 45-45-90 type triangles, and a
rectangle as a base. The dimensions of the base are already known because the base is congruent
to one of the lateral faces in the square prism. The edges across from the 90 angles are 24 cm
and the edges across from the 60 angles are 122 cm. The two equilateral triangles have 122
cm as one of their legs, so that automatically tells us that the other legs are 122 cm. For the last
two triangles, when you fold the whole pyramid together, the edges are going to have to match
up with the others so they would have to be 122 cm also. So now that you know the dimensions
to everything, you can find the volume. The first step to do this is to find the volume of the
square prism. The formula for this is Vpr= Abhpr (let Vpr= Volume of a prism, Ab= Area of the
base, and hpr= Height of the prism). The base of the prism is a square and the formula to find the
area of a square is As=b*h. When you fill it in, it should be As=(122)(122) which would
equal 288 cm2 and the height is 24 cm. Now that you have the area of the base and the height,

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you can find the volume. When you fill in the formula, it should be Vpr=288*24 which is 6,912.
So the volume of the square prism is 6,912 cm3. Now you need to find the volume of the
rectangular pyramid and the formula for that is Vp =
()*Ab*hp (let Vp= Volume of a pyramid, Ab= Area of the
base, and hp= Height of the pyramid). The base of the
pyramid is a rectangle so the formula for that is Ar=b*h (let
Ar= Area of a rectangle). When you fill in the formula it
should be A=24*122 because of the recently found
dimensions. The answer to that is 2882, so the area of
the base is 2882 cm2. Now you have to find the height
of the pyramid. To do so, you can use one of the
equilateral triangles like seen in the picture to the right.
If you bisect the triangle, it becomes two 30-60-90 type triangles which is another special
right triangle. Since you bisected the triangle, the two lengths both divide into 62 cm. In a 3060-90, the side opposite of the 30 angle is considered a or the normal number, the
hypotenuse is 2a, and the side opposite of the 60 is a3. In this case a is considered 62 cm.
Now you have to find the height of that equilateral triangle and that is the side across from the
60 angle so you have to multiply 62 by 3 which makes the height 66 cm. Now if you make
a 3-D model of the pyramid, you can find the actual height using the Pythagorean Theorem
(a2+b2=c2). The picture to the left shows the pyramid folded. You can draw in the triangle from
the picture above and you know that the slant height (height of a lateral face) is 66 cm. Now
you fill in the Pythagorean Theorem, 122+b2=(66)2. The a is 12 because 12 is one of the

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legs of the triangle; b is the height so that stays a variable, and the hypotenuse is 66 because of
what was found earlier. This is how to work the equation out:
122+b2=(66)2
144+b2=36*6
144+b2=216
-144
-144
-----------------b2=72
b2=72
b=72
b=36*2
b=62 cm
So the height of the whole pyramid is 62 cm. Now we can fill in the volume formula as
Vp=()*2882*62 and the volume of the rectangular pyramid is 1,152 cm3. Now we have to
multiply that by four because there are four rectangular pyramids: 1,152*4= 4,608 cm3. The final
step to finding the volume is to add the rectangular pyramids volume with the square prisms
volume, so that would be 4,608+6,912 which equals 11,520
cm3. Thats how you find the volume of the cubo-octahedron
by using a right square prism and four rectangular pyramids.

The last way to find the volume of the cubo-octahedron is

using 8 tetrahedrons and 6 square pyramids. The tetrahedron
is a Platonic solid which contains of 4 equilateral triangles as faces. A square pyramid has a

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square base and four equilateral triangles as the lateral faces. The first step to find the volume is
to find the dimensions of each net.

Figure 8. Tetrahedron Net

Figure 8 is showing what the tetrahedron net should look like. All the edges are 122 cm
because they are all equilateral. Since the base of the triangle would be one of the outer triangles
of the cubo, the edge would have to be the length of the side length which is 122.

Figure 9. Net of the Square Pyramid

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Figure 9 is showing a sketch of the net of the square pyramid. All

the edges will also be 122 cm because one of the triangular faces of the
tetrahedron has to fit on a triangular side of it, as seen in the picture to the
right. Now that you have the dimensions of the two objects, you can find
the volume. First to find the volume of the tetrahedron, you use the formula Vp = ()*Abhp.
First you have to find the height just like any other pyramid.

Figure 10. Finding Height of Tetrahedron

First you take the middle triangle from the net
and bisect it so it becomes a 30-60-90 triangle and
the top length gets cut in half into 62 cm. To get the
height of that triangle, you multiply 62 by 3 to get
66 cm. Now when you make the tetrahedron 3-D, it
looks like the picture to the right and now you use the
Pythagorean Theorem to find the height of it.
a2+b2=c2
(26)2+b2=(66)2

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The a is 26 because the short leg of a tetrahedron is (1/3) of the half the other triangle so (1/3)
of 62 is 26.
(4*6)+b2=(36*6)
24+b2=216
-24

-24

-----------------b2=192
b2=192
b=192
The height of the tetrahedron is 192 cm long. Now you have to find the area of the base which
is a triangle so the formula is Ab=()*b*h. The base is 122 cm and we already found the height
of it which is 66 cm. So now fill in the formula as Ab=()*(122)*(66) which makes the area
of the base 3612 cm2. Now that you have the height and area, you can fill in the volume
formula as Vp=(1/3)*(3612)*(192) which makes the volume of the tetrahedron 576 cm3. Now
you have to multiply that by 8 because there are 8 tetrahedrons so it should be 576*8 which
makes the volume of all the tetrahedrons together 4,608 cm3. Now you have to find the volume
of the square pyramid using the formula Vp=(1/3)*Ab*hp. The base is a square, so you use the
formula A=b*h and fill it in as A=(122)*( 122) to get the area of the base to be 288 cm3.
Now to find the height, you do it similar to the tetrahedron as you use the Pythagorean Theorem,
but the difference is that the short segment is 62 cm. To work out the equation:
a2+b2=c2
(62)2+b2=(66)2

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You can solve it like the tetrahedron; because they are both pyramids and both have the same
dimensions.
36*2+b2=36*6
72+b2=216
-72
-72
---------------b2=144
b2=144
b=12
The height of the square pyramid is 12 cm. Now that we have that, we can fill in the formula as
Vp=(1/3)*288*12 which makes the volume 1,152. Then multiply that by 6 because there are six
square pyramids to make 1,152*6 to get 6,912 cm3 as the volume of all the square pyramids.
Lastly you have to add up both volumes (6,912+4,608) to get the volume of the whole cubooctahedron 11,520 cm3. Thats how you find the volume using 8 tetrahedrons and 6 square
pyramids.
In conclusion, the cubo-octahedron is a complex Archimedean solid which has three
different unique ways to find its volume: using a corner piece of the cube, using a square prism
and four rectangular pyramids, and using a 8 tetrahedrons and 6 square pyramids. Even though
youre using three different methods, the volume should always be the same. This is because it is
the same cubo-octahedron each time so the volume should never change, even if its found in
different ways. You can find the volume and the surface area of the whole thing just by being
given the length of an edge of the original cube. When finding all these things, only one problem
had occurred. That problem was that the volume from case 1 did not match the volume in case 2
until we realized that in case 1, you have to multiply the volume of a corner piece by 8. When we

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did that, the volumes matched up. Some pictures were made by the TI-Nspire Student
Software, one was received from a website, and the others were made by Mr. Acre.