geometry

288: Happy Birthday Gemma

| wonko

A friend turns 40 tonight, and quite likes roses, so I thought a paper construction might compliment the rose bush we were taking as a suitable milestone:

Made from 40 pieces of paper, this is a variation of Maria Sinayskaya’s “Little Roses” kusudama (rose ball), a curious construction that features triplets of lightly bent petals that interlock in threes, making pentagonal vertices – the maths here does my head in.

Was lovely to catch up, Happy Birthday Gemma, and happy house-warming Mark, Gem, Jake and Kit.

287: Fuse Box (Small Flowers)

| wonko

Tomoko Fuse is a genius in designing intricate boxes:

this is called “Small Flowers” because of an incidental pattern the overlapping edges make, sort of looks like aflower. I made it in colour only because a monochrome version would not have been remarkable.

The lid and the base are each comprised of 4 pieces of paper, an interlocking modular that is fairly rigid and would make a nice stocking case or filled with some sweet treat.

Why a “Fuse Box”? Well, Energex had a transformer on the street go pop and our school spent the day without power – all interesting. I thought a paper play on words might be fun.

286: Spiral Star

| wonko

I saw a video of this interesting structure and decided I should give it a whirl:

It is Tadahi Mori’s “Spiral Star” – a lovely fiddly modular using 6 bits of paper that interlock to form a 12 pointed star with lovely spirals near the centre.

If this was not so fiddly, it would make a nice decoration for a festive tree I guess, but even with A4-cut squares it was dense and tricksey.

Quite happy with this as a first fold and, yes, I know I have done my monthly modular but … meh, it interested me so there you go.

280: Infinity Cubed

| wonko

Now I got thinking about infinity, as you do, and that I could beat it by cubing it, then a modular idea struck – make an infinity out of cubes:

So I began collecting business cards – white on the back, and performed 2 simple bends (and ONLY 2) per card – then explored ways of linking them together securely using techniques I had previously discovered.

This sort of construction eats up a LOT of cards – 426 in this construction – each cube side has an inner and outer skin card, making it finished, white, smooth and lovely. This thing is HUGE, surdy and really rigid.

This took a bit of thinking out, I started it on Tuesday and, bit by bit, it coalesced into something wonderful and profoundly beautiful (well, I think it is) – such a nice intervention between old discarded business cards and the landfill they will eventually become.

278: Passing Notes

| wonko

Now those who know me realise 2 things – I love music but I cannot read those little black dots on the lines for nuts:

It was doubly problematic when I was in a choir as all those around me were able to sight-read and I … sort of … faked it (I have good pitch and developed a skill of singing along).

It was/is a frustration that is heightened when I am confused, tired, stressed and … well … pretty well all the time really.

This model, designed by Jeremy Shaffer is a neat little cluster of notes and is very tidy, considering it came from a square there is lots of tough hiding of paper inside to make a polished model.

WHY fold this? Well, today JJJ released a new radio station – “Unearthed” that promises to give a whole bunch of unsigned bands a place for their music to be broadcast – this is a wonderful thing IWHO.

276: Nautilus

| wonko

Tomoko Fuse is undeniably a genius, her work with exacting spiral forms unequalled:

This is her “Nautilus”, a lovely recursive form that, after the pre-creasing, almost folds itself.

Elegant and graceful curve, perfectly planned pleats and a tidy shell end make this model a keeper for sheer geometric beauty alone.

I want to pretend that I go tthis first try – truth is I folded a set of folds wrong way round first go (bloody Japanese instructions), but restarted because I wanted to make the model (so sue me)

Will be folding this again – would love to fold this in large format, will see how I go. really happy with this – who said geometric sequences were not beautiful (it is just mathematicians that wring the joy out of them :P)

273: Business Card Dice

| wonko

I was playing with a modular technique that uses 6 business cards, some simple bends that create a stable modular cube:

You can then either link these cubes in any direction or “face” the sides with an additional set of 6 cards. I made these during a conference session that talked about creativity – I thought I should walk the walk.

I must consider a larger structure using this technique – a little like minecraft-style building but with paper.

272: Cheers, Big Ears

| wonko

Now I am a little bit merry after the QSITE drinks mid way through their annual conference:

So decided to give some pleating a go to form a martini glass – the principle is based on a technique designed by Stephen Hecht and involves exhaustive pre-creasing followed by an elegant twist/collapse

The resultant sculptural form is lovely – the scale I calculated also makes it life-size and convincingly a martini glass.

QSITE Peeps are off to the conference dinner tonight – I raise my glass to a bunch of talented and enthusiastic colleagues. I hope they have fun.

Very happy with this as a first fold, it is based on a  similar technique I used to invent a trophy for my son with the only really tricksey part determining scale. Satisfied with this one however. hope you like it too (lol, kidding myself that people are actually reading this shite).

270: False Teeth

| wonko

Anyone who knows me realizes the terror I experience when visiting the dentist:

Don’t get me wrong, our dentist is awesome, and very aware that I have an irrational fear that I cannot control when being worked on.

A red frog (chewy lolly) was the latest culprit, taking away most of a huge filling on one of my molars so today I face a molar re-build and thought origami teeth – there’s an idea.

This delightful model is a compact little box pleating exercise designed by Robin Glynn. When folded from an A4 cut square they turn out essentially lifesize, although they have much fewer teeth than a real set, they are demonstrative of form and look a lot like those chattering teeth wind-up toys sold in joke shops.

Quite happy with this as a first fold.

260: Six Intersecting Pentagonal Prisms

| wonko

Now most who know me know that I am up for a challenge and when I saw this one I knew I had to give it a go:

90 pieces of paper (60 small and 30 long) individually folded and locked together, no glue make an astonishing lump of awesomeness:

This has taken me AGES – folded over a the course of last week, the last two prisms were added today and we have this lovely thing. Designed by Daniel Kwan, based in part of a Francis Ow unit, the angles necessary to make a pentagon are tricksey.

The tab and pocket construction technique is, in theory, really simple but when the model has 3 simultaneous tabs (for any vertex) keeping them all in before locking them was really fiddly and resulted in much swearing. As the model got more and more crowded the problems increased to the point where I nearly gave up, having mangled a set of tabs so badly they were not going to insert, requiring a refold.

Very satisfying to finally finish – there is a lovely symmetry with this model – pentagonal swirls framed by pentagons. I think my term 3 modular is cool – hope you like it also.

Want to make it? Download my intersectingPentagularPrismsPattern and print it on an A3 page, cut out the shapes and get bending – tab A goes into slot B etc. Originally this was designed to be made from STARBURST lolly wrappers but I scaled them up to be double that to make it easier. Achievable with copy paper, probably much easier with a different colour for each prism in retrospect.

254: September 11

| wonko

For me, September 11 2001 was the day the world lost it, in a big way. Senseless acts of violence were met with years of senselessly violent retaliation and witch-hunts, government sanctioned genocide and publicly celebrated religious fanaticism. There were no winners – we as a species did little to justify our position atop the food chain:

A symbol of peace in the origami community is the crane, there is a branch of the craft that looks to incorporate cranes into other models. this intricate and often torturous craft can result in some stunningly complicated folding – this one by Jeremy Shafer is called “The Star of Peace”.

Using a technique termed “isolating squares”, you reserve unfolded squares and crumple all else out of the way and in this care we end up with a 3d star with a ring of 4 cranes flying around the top layer. The container is waterproof (like a fancy waterbomb).

I fold this with mixed emotions – the media has so skewed the events leading up to and after 9/11 that it leaves me with an even stronger resolve against war, military action and religion … you get that. I live in hope that the human spirit continues to emerge from the morass, looking for ways to help, positive actions that build the dignity of people and erase the artificial barriers of race, creed and sect.

Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try
No people below us, above it’s only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do
No need to kill or die for and no religions too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger a brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing for the world

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
Take my hand and join us
And the world will live, will live as one
John Lennon, “Imagine”.

252: Umulus Rectangulum

| wonko

I liked this modular when I first saw it and knew that it would look wonderful in colour:

An interesting elbow bend, tubular construction and odd folding in fifths make this model interesting to make

You start with a split A4 page, box pleat and lock the tube, then slide one inside the other to make a rectangular hoopy thing, then nest another inside that one, then lock a third over the top of that one and you end up with a lovely sort of impossible looking shape

I like this a lot, the illusion of intersecting shapes in well designed and although a little time consuming it is satisfying and a keeper I think.

251: Infinity

| wonko

Now in my quest to fold 365 models, one a day for a whole year, it seems like I have been doing this forever already. Not having an infinite amount of time, I thought I wold fold an INFINITY in paper:

this is a rather ingenious pair of interlocking rings, the whole of which (hole … a ring joke there, lol) was folded from a single square, no cuts, no glue.

This ingenious fold is from Jeremy Shafers book “Origami to Astonish and Amuse” and is the first step towards achieving a snarly fold that features EIGHT rings (again, from ONE piece of paper)

A lovely accordion fold and some tidy end pleating and presto, an infinity symbol which I think is splendid. Even the wife did not believe it was only one sheet until I unfolded it and proved it was.

231: Tomoko Fuse’s Snail

| wonko

Now I found a collection of spirals and boxes by paper legend Tomoko Fuse, and the snail looked hoopy, so I decided to fold it:

A relatively simple fold, with an elegant curved pleat forms the shell and a simple shape for the foot topped off with lovely eye stalks.

If I was to fold this again I would use less symmetrical pleats, so the creases get closer together as the shell gets smaller, still it is a lovely bit of geometry.

Was puzzling what to do as today’s fold, glad I chose this.

222: Jitterbug

| wonko

My Monthly Modular is a fab use of equilateral triangles that work in clusters of 4 or 5 to make interesting spheroids:

Eight of the modules make a “Jitterbug” – a curious structure that twists into a cube.

Thirty of the modules clustered in fives make a soccer ball (er, sorry, an Icosadodecahedron) which is a lovely thing to behold. (oops, sorry, a icosidodecahedron)

A relatively simple construction, quite quick also and also fairly rigid given how the parts interlock and self-tighten. You can have a go at this yourself here