Lexington, SC (WLTX) - Students built such an advanced structure using household objects that it could earn them a world record.
"It was very mathematical," said David Mast a junior who worked on the project. "It's a fractal. So, it's a geometrical shape and it builds upon itself."
Mast was one of about a hundred home school students who worked to build the Sierpinski triangle.
"A triangle is the strongest shape there is," said Mast.
The students used folded 1,024 envelopes to make the smaller triangles used to create the larger Sierpinski triangle. The groups efforts could earn them a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records.
"It's about 8 feet tall," said Nathan Melchers, a senior. "We had to see how much the paper would support and make sure it wasn't going to collapse on itself."
The group believes it's the forth time a Sierpinski triangle has been built this way.
"They came to our office and presented to us first to show us 'hey we know what we're talking about, we know how we're going to attack this problem'," said Tony Steffee, an engineer in Lexington who helped with the project.
Steffee helped make sure the plan would work. He also taught the group how to construct so the materials could work together.
"People did get tired of folding," said Matthew Lord, a sophomore who worked on the project. "We kept it interesting because once they started folding they started building the actual triangle. Everybody had a hand in it."