How to know in advance how many points a given wheel will make in any Super Spirograph layout. 

Super Spirograph comes with the same rings and wheels as the regular Spirograph plus the “super” parts shown in the picture, which you snap together to make a big layout.

If you want to predict the number of points that a certain wheel will give you in a particular layout, you need to know the number of teeth in the layout.

You can then use the table on this page to predict the number of points the design will have.

Chart: Number of teeth on the different super parts

# of Teeth	Concave	Convex
A	12	18
B	16	24
C	24	36
D	32	48
E	20
F	56
Y	16 (each curve)
end	14

Note that the curves have more teeth on the convex side than the concave side. Some layouts have a combination of concave and convex curves on the inside.

Sample calculations

Rectangles:

A rectangle with a straight piece F on the shorter side and an F plus E on the long side, plus a curve C at each corner: would have:

4 x C (concave) plus 4 x F plus 2 x E = 4×24 + 4×56 + 2×20
(Remember your grade school math and multiply each group before you add!)
= 96 + 224 + 40 = 360 teeth on the inside

A smaller rectangle allows you to draw designs outside as well as inside on letter-sized paper. This one has one long F piece on each long side, and a short E piece on each short side.

Inside: 4 x C plus 2 x F plus 2 x E = 4×24 + 2×56 + 2×20 =
96 + 112 + 40 = 248 teeth on the inside

Outside: Note that only the curves are different lengths on the outside.
4 x C plus 2 x F plus 2 x E = 4×36 + 2×56 + 2×20 =
144 + 112 + 40 = 296 teeth on the outside

See some Super Spirograph designs drawn with these two rectangles.

Cloverleaf

The cloverleaf is a very curvaceous layout. It is formed from the curved pieces laid out D-B-C-D-B-C-D-B-C-D-B-C, with the C pieces turned in the other direction from the D-B units. To count the number of teeth, use the concave number for D and B, and the convex number for C.

4 x D (concave) plus 4 x B (concave) plus 4 x C (convex)
= 4×32 + 4×16 + 4×36 = 336 teeth on the inside.

See some Super Spirograph patterns made with the cloverleaf layout.

Curvy diamond

My old Super Spirograph booklet doesn’t even have a name for this layout, it just says “try this”. So I’m calling it the curvy diamond, and I like it a lot. It’s small enough that you can draw designs on the outside on letter-sized paper, as well as on the curvy inside.

The east and west wings are two C curves. The north and south wings are a single D curve. The four wings are joined together with B curves faced the other way.

Inside: 4 x C (concave) plus 2 x D (concave) plus 4 x B (convex) = 4×24 + 2×32 + 4×24 = 256 teeth on the inside.

Outside: 4 x C (convex) plus 2 x D (convex) plus 4 x B (concave) = 4×36 + 2×48 + 4×16 = 144 + 96 + 64 = 304 teeth on the outside.

I know the number of teeth. So now what?

Now go to the big chart and match your wheel numbers (rows) with your layout numbers (columns) and find the number of points your pattern will have.