A few weeks ago I had shared a few triplet-ambigrams I had designed. For the uninitiated a triplet ambigram is a 3-d shape that cast different, and interesting, shadows depending on where you shine light on it. For instance here’s a triplet ambigram that casts three different shadows that read A, B & C!

Yesterday I received an email from Alex Ruthman, a self-proclaimed regular reader of this blog who had been inspired to create his own triplet ambigrams. Alex is a music educator and researcher at UMass Lowell with an interest in creativity, music technology, web 2.0 and learner agency (see his home page here). Now, Alex has taken the design of such triplets to their next logical level. He does not just prototype them on paper, he designs them in Google Sketchup and then 3D prints them in plastic! Here is a photo he sent to me…

As you can see this shape casts the shadows of L, P & C (depending on where light shines on it). What is more, Alex does not just do this for fun. He has actually found an use for it in his teaching. As he said in his email:

I use these with my music education methods and research courses illustrating multiple perspectives and three modes of engaging with music: listening, performing and creating.

How cool is that!