Adidas kept the ball’s black-and-white color scheme until 2002, but the 32-panel buckyball might not stay in vogue much longer—Adidas launched its new generation of soccer balls for the 2006 ...

Since about 1970, soccer balls have been stitched or glued together from 32 patches of material—12 of them five-sided and 20 of them six-sided. These patches are arranged so that each pentagon ...

Most folks know the soccer ball as a 32-panel, black and white affair. But with a little engineering, the ball can be altered in how it feels on the foot and how predictably it travels in the air.