Help! How to make a DNA model?

If you fully understand what you are depicting then it shouldn’t be too difficult. You could use beads, coloured paper or even Christmas tree lights if you wished.

Find a crafts store and get (a) some reasonably-sized foam balls/shapes, (b) spraypaint, (c) some skinny and preferrably round sticks, and (d) some glue. Pole holes in the foam materials with the sticks in the locations that you want, then remove. Paint. Let paint dry. Put a dab of glue in the punctures of the foam materials. Re-insert sticks in a logical order. Let sit for ~1 hour. Avoid using as weapon against small siblings.

Tinkertoys.

@dpworkin Nice.

You need something that you can make into a helix; that’s the problem. I would imagine that toy shops have some kind of rod and ball building set, probably out of plastic, that could be twisted to form the helix. I don’t think tinker toys would do it @dpworkin because they don’t twist, but I think a building toy is thie way to go.

@janbb You need something that you can make into a helix; that’s the problem

One of those old “Tetherball” games.

Did you know that the deli plastic at the grocery store is like shrinky-dink material? You can colour it with markers cut it to shape, and shrink it in the oven and you have the four proteins and can connect that with some rubber tubing perhaps? (make sure the plastic is marked with a 6) http://www.instructables.com/id/Super-Shinking-Plastic!/
I like Lego too.

You could use strips of duct tape folded into fourths lengthwise to form the outside of the helix, and then use colored duct tape. That would be flexible.

Here’s lego inspiration.

My science book told you how to make one using pipe cleaners. Would that be considered wires?

Yes. There are wires inside the fuzz.

If you google “duct tape DNA model”, there’s a great .pdf on how to make a DNA model from Gutter Guard and duct tape.

Give it a scholarship to Barbizon.

make it all edible!...like with twizzlers and toothpicks (ok so dont eat the toothpicks after)

@msbauer I did that for my ninth grade project at the end of the semester. It was a model for a cell tho and it was awesome( and delicious)

I’d visit a crafts store and ask what they might suggest. Personally, I think pipe cleaners are great for making stuff.

@WolfFang niiiiiiice. i made a cell too but it was with lame styrofoam and putty. definitely jealous of yours