geometry

208: Flexiball

| wonko

Now I am not an experienced modular folder, but this is relatively new to me and yee gods it is interesting. Having Parent-torture interviews tonight I got home in time to do the final assembly for this little beauty:

Designed by Jorge Pardo, it takes 60 – yes children, that is right SIXTY squares of paper in delicious and bendy ways.

Each module is fairly easy (if a little fiddly) to make, coupling them takes nimble fingers and a bone folder to lock the layers – bunches of 5 make stars of a spoke, each spoke unit connects to each adjacent one via 2 arms, it more or less forms itself.

This has taken me ages, literally hours – over the last few days inbetween other models but it is hoopy. My FIRST FOLDS were white, but I decided a while into the model that it had to be done in colour, using small Washi paper squares provided by Mary Cassidy made the job easy (thanks Mrs Cass!).

You may applaud now.

206: Celtic Cross

| wonko

This week is Catholic Education Week – now I am not a Catholic, nor ever religious but I know that at my place of work there are a number of important ecumenical symbols – one of which is a Celtic Cross:

This model takes a preliminary base and distorts it in interesting ways – designed by Tadashi Mori it is an interesting geometric form that has its roots in ancient UK cultures.

Our school has one in it’s quadrangle, and our school crest has one as well – appropriate symbology I thought.

202: Ninja Star

| wonko

When I was a kid, an old black and white telly series from Japan called “Samurai” captured my attention – corny stories of good guys in white versus ninjas in black:

They threw star knives as one of their many skills (jumping, film reverse, back up into corners roof corners was another). A year 6 student brought me a ninja star he had made for him (mum or dad folded it) after I inquired if he could teach me.

After a small amount of deconstruction, the elegantly simple construction was evident – strength and simplicity in what looks like an intricate machine. I liked it so much I made a coloured one, using some lovely little washi squares Mary bought for me (love your work Cass’)

Happy with this, particularly as the star moves upon itself and the “blades” retract into a lovely octagonal ring – very clever

201: Winged Heart

| wonko

Apparently, according to JJJ at least, it is LOVE WEEK – awwwww

So I folded Frances Ow’s winged Heart (partly because it is late, I am tired and sometimes a simple fold is ok – ok?

An effective fold, in duo paper the heart is one colour and the wings are another – nice.

199: Lego Block

| wonko

Now I like a good challenge, but this was a little beyond the pale:

I have seen photos of this model less than half as big and I am buggered if I can work out how you could fold it that small as I struggled at this scale.

A fascinating exercise in box pleating that makes the peggy things and the pitty things on the same surface of a page, then bending it into a self-locking box – wow!

I can see how this could scale infinitely, adding rows of pegs and pits but I am glad I chose only 2 of each as this alone took me an age to nut out – I had a practice with each component first (the site I found it suggested this was a good idea (well, at least I think it did, I cannot read Italian very well.

Why lego? Well, I have been playing with lego robots for a week or so in prep for a robotic unit with year 10 students – lots of fun.

You should have a go at this yourself here

Tetrahedra Revisited

| wonko

…so I was bugged that as tiny little triangles, in white, I found it impossible to complete the 5 intersecting shape thing, so I went to the school copy room and asked for some colourful Copy paper – A4.

I got 5 strong colours, cut squares, made them into thirds, total of 6 strips per tetrahedra, 5 tetrahedra – total of 30 bits of paper, 1-2 minutes to fold each unit, 3-5 minutes each to place and lock into surrounding units and it is done.

I find this shape fascinating, and the order of the pattern was only evident after I had completed it – from simple shapes, great complexity and beauty can arise.

144: Carambola

| admin

I stumbled across this nice geometric “floral” design by accident but rather like it’s simplicity:

It reminds me of an apple blossom, or a star fruit in cross section

Unusually, it is made from a pentagon, and the pre-creasing means the shape is largely just a collapse

Busy day, vicious earache, simple but lovely model – enjoy. You too can have a go at this here

142: Interlaced Tetrahedra

| admin

Now I have never tried MODULAR origami – it is a huge and enthusiastic movement in the society of paper benders – making modules that lock together to make a compound shape. I found instructions for Francis Ow’s 60° Unit and thought I would give a tetrahedron (6 of these units) a go:

I … got a little carried away and discovered they can nestle amongst each other in a lovely geometrically interesting sort of way. With this module, apparentyl, it is possible to complete 5 (yes, you heard me, 5 = 5×6 = 30 strips of paper) intersecting tetrahedra – scale beat me here (the tiny units are just too fiddly to lock together – must try it on A4 scale).

This is a new frontier for me, and it interests me strangely – the units are self-centring, lock each other so require no glue, have an amazing tensile strength when locked together and are simple to fold (1-2mins each). Based on 1/3 of a square, the folded thickness apparently is mathematically proved to allow a 5-intersection – we shall see.

You should try this – I enjoyed the modular approach and will probably try another in the next month (there are lots of flavours that do all sorts of things geometrically speaking) – Engineers (and those budding ones) should have a fiddle – something stunningly beautiful about regular geometry (better not say this too loud, maths teachers might hear me)

137: Magic Ball

| wonko

I saw this lovely bit of geometry and reasoned it was actually just a repetitive tessellation:

The folds, whilst tiresome (there are a lot of them) are not difficult if you are careful, but the collapse was a new form of torture – it took ages to get all the pleats into place, wrestling with such a flexy squirmy model was tricksey.

In the end, it is soft, pliable and great fun to play with – it has an odd material strength when stitched into a tube (via a line of stickeytape – shhhh) but then distorts and flexes in very sexy ways.

Great exercise in pleating, crimping and patience – had no idea it would take this long, but enjoyed it in a strange way

109: Brill’s Nut

| wonko

Take a rectangle cut from half a square and torture it via box-pleating:

and you get a nut that actually takes the thread of the bolt previously made with the same hexagonality, nice.

This was an odd fold, it looked like it was going to hell at every stage, the inside collapse looked like it could not work, until it just did. Tucking away all that paper inside to leave a relatively clean hex nut on the outside is paper engineering genius.

Folded from “Brilliant Origami” by David Brill (that is 3 Brill models in a row, time for a change perhaps?).

108: David Brill’s Bolt

| wonko

When I first saw this model I thought it was not possible, but thought I would give it a whirl anyway:

This is a bolt, box pleated to have a functional thread and a beautiful hexagonal do-uppy endy thing (sorry, no idea what you call the end you use a spanner on).

It was a fascinating exercise in crimping and pleating that did not come easily – the pattern of valleys and mountains was challenging to fold in pre-crease stage and more torturous to collapse. I found it difficult to reach inside the tube during the early collapse stage (fingers were not long enough to reach) and resorted to using the bone folder to help out the first few crimps.

This was folded from the appropriately named “Brilliant Origami” by David Brill. It has an accompanying model (the “nut”) that I shall try for tomorrow – they form a pair – could be interesting.

95: Star Puff tesselations

| wonko

I am fairly new to box pleating and tessellated patterns but this one caught my eye and I had to try it:

Oddly, it works on 120 degree angles, so a hexagon is perfect as a starter. I would like to say it was all neat and went to plan, but the individual “triangle twists” are not as even as I would like (I put that down to having no idea what I was doing initially) – certainly they got better the more of them I completed:

I get the impression that the smaller the pleats, the more of the units fit, but the more complex the interaction between them so you get folded into fiddly corners. I quite like the triangle twist method, some pleasing shapes emerge from it.

You should give this a try – do not be frightened by the link, the instructor speaks English amidst the sea of German: star puff

65: Vase

| wonko

Ingenious folds that create waterproof containers are interesting:

Massaging the edges to the top and finishing them off decoratively so they lock and stay together is an art, this little vase is a beauty, apart from the whole 1/3rd 1/6th thing necessary to initially pleat the structure.

I cheated, did a square in quarters and cut off one quarter on 2 sides to leave thirds – am sure there is a method to precisely fold thirds though. I could imagine this in tissue-foil with camellia blossoms – a pretty bit of geometric paper torture – see if you can follow along.Taken from a book I bought in Japan, no idea what it is called, sorry as it is all in Japanese.

61: Jack In the Box

| wonko

Wow, no I mean WOW!

This little beauty is a masterpiece of box pleating, designed by Max Hulme.  I was sure it had no chance of working correct as the whole working in 6ths, 12ths and quarters was a real pain on such a small scale. Made from the largest 2×1 rectangle that can be cut from an A4 page, I think next time I make it I will do it bigger and it is really fiddly with such big fingers.

This pattern was given to me by a Year 12 student years back on a Kairos rereat, and one look at it relegated it to the “yeah, maybe later” pile to try – I decided to give it a whirl first-fold today and am totally chuffed it worked.

I am amazed with the intricacy and detail – his face has ears, body is wearing a coat with sleeves, he is sitting on the most torturous but beautiful spring and most magically of all, actually folds up into a tiny neat box so the lid closes – wow!

59: Incense Burner

| wonko

Deceptively simple, this exercise in pre-folding followed by a magical collapse results in an interesting box/table/container…thing:

I like the design, geometry, clever self-locking but am not sure a paper container is the best thing to light up incense in.A nice simple model to finish the month with – thanks @ackygirl for the loan of the book this comes from.