Flipping through the book “Origami Masters – Bugs – How the Bug Wars Changed the Art Of Origami”, you cannot help but be frightened by this model:
Robert Lang, mathematician, engineer and origami design genius in this model pushes the envelope of what is possible with paper on a number of levels. The book gives general hints about a truly terrifying paper manipulation which I think, largely ignores the fact that paper will be used in the fabrication. Continue reading
I have been on holiday, 6 weeks is a long time between folds but I thought I would ease back into it with a simple model … then I saw Fumiaki Kawahata’s TRex and thought “screw it”:
Waiting in my kept mail was the last Tanteidan of the previous subscription, this little beauty on the cover and I thought – how hard can this be? Continue reading
I have a low tolerance of boredom, so slack time between busy times at work required me to keep my fingers busy:
This is an interesting module, made up of useful units – tiles of joined equilateral triangles with solid pockets and tabs. Continue reading
I came across a bunch of variations to a 12 unit modular cube that variously used a 1×1, 2×1 and 3×1 rectangle. I settled on the square variant (in retrospect I should have used the 2×1 version – half as much paper required, but you live and learn.
Initially I just was interested in the locking mechanism of a cube, so folded a red one. then I decided to see how a yellow one might intersect, then because I had some purple paper left over from the torus I thought to link the yellow to a purple, and the idea sort of grew from there.
I scoured my dealer’s (Rhonda, the custodian of paper supplies) shelves and ended up finding 11 different colours/tints – I added a “black” origami paper as the 12th colour and, hey presto they formed a ring of particular beauty.
It just sort of happened – I resolved to only fold during breaks at work, in front of kids, and over a period of 2 weeks it grew into a long chain and I was finally ready to join it into a ring.
I want to say this join was an easy, simple thing. I did not find it so – I tried, undid it, tried again, unfolded it (muttering obscenities under my breath). tried again, thought I had it until I realised it was wrong (the pattern should repeat, the join should not be visible – doh! Continue reading
Anyone who knows me understands my fascination with the Sydney Opera House, as a kid I saw the sails of it being built:
Set magnificently on Bennelong Point right in the heart of the harbour, it together with the Sydney Harbour Bridge (no, do not panic, I am not making that) are quintessential Australian icons.
Googling one day I stumbled across a design idea from Gerwin Sturm (2007) for a box pleated version of my fav building on earth, and some vague explanations of how it “should be possible to collapse and shape based on a 32×32 grid”. Continue reading
