I am nothing if not determined at times. This model has beaten me many times but, due to a perfect storm it seemed to just happen in my hands:
This is Satoshi Kamiya’s “Tsuru Rose” – an odd but beautiful combination of a Kawasaki rose twist in the body segment of a traditional Tsuru. Continue reading
A craze among the young kids at the moment is the “fidgit spinner“, that little toy that … spins, and … well, that is just about it:
According to some fairly shady “research”, these toys improve concentration, and that may be correct for a limited number of kids with specific learning issues, but, yeah.
Enterprising businesses sell these, advertise “tricks” you can do with them, and offer ways to pimp out your rig in ways that, well, make it more fully sick. Continue reading
Starting with a square-twist tessellation, you add to the intensity by folding it some more:
Alternating spin squares with stars, you get this nightmare of paper torture. Continue reading
Assignment time can sometimes be boring for a teacher, especially when kids are beavering away independently:
This is a tessellation I have not tried before. Based on a square grid, diagonal squares rotate 45 degrees to lie flat again, causing pleat ripples that are cancelled out by adjacent twists – clever. Continue reading
I have been a fan of Talking Heads pretty well as long as it was possible to be one. “Burning down the house” remains one of the great songs of all time:
This is Martin Wall’s “Matchbox”, an ingenious model folded from a single, much tortured, piece of paper. A lovely little life-size matchbox, folded from a 50x17cm rectangle (3×1), it comprises an outer tray and a movable tray that slides open and closed. Continue reading
Tomoko Fuse is a living legend in the Origami Community, her designs are numerous, intricate, ingenious and challenging to fold:
This is a 12 part modular with double-locks, frilly bits and framed holes in each face. Continue reading
Scratching around for something to fold, I stumbled across a 2-part modular that I had filed in the “must try” pile:
LED displays are part of my past, little blocky symbols that were all the rage before screens went pixels and graphical. Continue reading
Looking around for a chess board in origami was fun, there seem to be a few out there, including a few that use only 1 sheet of paper and a million creases to perform the necessary colour changes for the squares:
I discovered I could not source paper large enough to make a playable chess board, so looked for alternatives and stumbled across Joseph Wu’s modular chessboard. Continue reading
Many battles need castles, chess is no exception:
This is Max Hulme’s Castle, one of the few in his series folded from a square and fairly recognisable at a turret. Continue reading
It is rare, in Brisbane, to get to see Origami displayed at all, let alone an exhibition by an accomplished folder such as Jonathan Baxter:
His display at the Richard Randall Art Studio, Mt Coo-tha Botanical gardens was a rare treat.
His folding displays showcased numerous forms of origami including delicate unit work like intricate spheres and torus from “Phiz” units, garlands of interlocking cubes and many variations. Continue reading
Struggling to make it through Friday, I stumbled across Sy Chen’s Hangman:
This paper puzzle allows you to gradually reveal parts of a hangman, suitable for a table top game. Continue reading
I am always on the lookout for a striking modular to fold when I am idle at work. This beauty – two tetrahedrons mating, was an obvious choice:
I have folded much more complicated versions of things like this – made with lots of little pieces each having different angle connectors. Ilan Garibi appropriates Francis Ow’s 60 degree unit and adds 2 different connector slots mid way along each long unit – a bottom edge slit and a top edge slit. These then mate seamlessly making it look like a pair of struts are in fact 4 bits of paper when they are not. The intersection of the 2 mating tetrahedrons is an octahedron; points rise from the octahedron faces making it stellated – genius. Continue reading
Origami seems to be the new Materials Engineering black, being considered a contemporary alternative approach to fabrication and structure:
I was reading an article on deploying large solar arrays in space. This problem is not unique – everything taken into space must be small at launch so it can fit in a rocket. Continue reading
I have passed this model many times, thinking “not sure what that is, maybe later”, but decided to give it a whirl tonight:
What a curious object. Designed by Jeremy Schafer, from his book “Origami to Astonish and Amaze”, this odd ripply mathematical conundrum hurts your brain to look at.
A fun paper manipulation first makes a nested tetrahedron, which is then accordion pleated to make the deltoid. You can then open it up like some surreal book, 4 separate rippled deltoids emerge – curious indeed. Continue reading
This fold was folded on our 34th wedding anniversary, chosen because a long and happy relationship is not reliant on luck:
This dice is clever is a little obscure – rather than traditional dots each face has a partial coverage of colour.
