Company History:

TenGeo was established by Tim Tendick in 1993 in Eugene, Oregon.  Tim became a fan of R. Buckminster Fuller in the 1980s and became fascinated with spherical mathematics while reading Synergetics.  He began creating products by cutting arcs out of paper, and created the first mock-up of the Geosphere.  He showed the Geosphere model to his co workers and received plenty of positive feed back.  Tim then took this mock-up to a local business man and former business professor of the University of Oregon, who encouraged Tim to move forward with TenGeo.

Mission Statement:

Our goal is to provide products that are interesting, affordable, and educational. Additionally, it is our goal to provide product literature that will guide educators in using our products to introduce or demonstrate a variety of educational topics such as spherical mathematics, structural integrity, or material strength. We want our products to be fun and attractive and at the same time stimulate creative thinking, and inspire learning.

Product Development:

After the Geosphere was launched we continued with development and the GeoMobile was finalized and released in 1994. Since then we have also created the TorusMobile, and the Omniball line, which includes the Star, the Atom and the Decosphere.  Our latest addition to the line of TenGeo products is the Great Circle Challenge; which is a sixty piece plastic three dimensional puzzle that offers quite a challenge.  The Great Circle Challenge design began way back in ’93, at the same time as the Geosphere paper kit, and stems from Tim’s enjoyment of challenging puzzles.  Due to the complexity and the need for additional manufacturing requirements it took several years to realize its addition as a product. We chose not to include instructions in the box with the puzzle but for those who find the challenge too difficult there are instructions posted on this site.  The TorusMobile product is a slight deviation from all the others which are based on spherical mathematics. This product comes from an interest of astronomy and space exploration. After seeing a movie that included a space station in the shape of a torus Tim began working on the TorusMobile product idea. To include a little more flair and to add another mathematical aspect to the Torus Tim included the shape of a screw thread to its surface. The paper kits can be used as an excellent demonstration of how laminations of like materials are created and how this process provides additional strength. Examine the strength of the individual components (the triangles, rhombi, and pentagons) then compare this to the finished product and you may be very surprised just how sturdy paper products can be.

We are considering a few ideas for new TenGeo products. Any feedback is welcome contactus@TenGeo.com; we are always open to making improvements and adding information to increase the interest and usefulness of the products. We are also investigating other manufacturers that support our goals to offer educational products that are fun and attractive, stimulate creative thinking, and inspire learning.