P Whitehouse

1130: Villeneuve Ornithopter v1.2

| wonko

When I first read Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series of books, it was the mid 70’s and I was a teenager. The expansive universe captured my imagination like little else.

Dune Part 2 has just been released in cinemas, and the Denis Villeneuve adaptation is visually stunning. On planet Arrakis (Dune), a chosen method of air travel is the “Ornithopter”, described as an insect-like flapping machine.

’Thopters in the current movie series are astonishing, if illogical from an engineering perspective. Variously, ‘Thopters have 2 to 12 wings, each move independently in a coordinated buzz to provide controlled lift and thrust.

The origami world has a few simple ‘thopter designs, most modelled on the 80’s David Lynch film adaptation, so I thought I would have a go at designing one from scratch. Initially I thought to harness an existing base, but decided I wanted 12 wings, in groups of 3, and wanted landing gear, some paper for a fuselage and various flaps for some simple detailing.

There are many design methodologies I could have employed. Circle packing (each circle centre representing the vertex of a stickey outer bit), 22.5 folding to facilitate the point-splitting needed for so many separate flaps, but settled on box pleating.

First I sketched out a rough crease pattern (CP). 12 points along opposite edges of a square. The downside of this arrangement was the points ended up tiny – way too small for the wings. Rearranging them symmetrically allowed me to include extra flaps for landing gear, cockpit and more. Designing the collapse along a 2 unit strip of the central axis also gave me the bulk for the fuselage. I calculated I could achieve this with a 48 grid.

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1081: l’escargot

| wonko

I was doodling with a scrap of 2×1 note paper and arrived at what I think might be an original model:

le escargot

This little snail has a volumetric shell and body, along with some lovely poseable eye stalks.

le escargot views

Originality in Origami is tricksey, as most models recycle techniques from other folds, and the head/eye end uses a fairly standard waterbomb-accordion sink, but I cannot remember seeing it used in this way.

The shell is formed initially by outside reverse-folding the body and as such offers a colour change opportunity if folded with bi-colour paper.

I made a video tutorial if you want to fold it, or read further for a set of photo diagrams.

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1052: Theremin

| wonko

I am a firm believer that people learn something important when they try to do something they are not good at. I have recently bought a Theremin, and I want to pretend that I am anything but not good at playing it, but, like, it is hard to master:

Origami Theremin

I noticed that a Theremin has a distinctive shape: an upright antenna that you use to control pitch (the high-lowness of a note), and a horizontal antenna loop you use to control volume. To my (not so great) surprise, I discovered that no one had yet done an origami model for this thing, so set about having a go.

I started with the fish base, long flap for the pitch antenna, long flap for the stand, then 2 shorter flaps become the volume loop. Some accordion pleating and the basic morphology is there. You can (I hope) see the development in the sequence below:

It is a start, I might try to refine it (add knobs, refine the antennae, etc). Happy with v1.

1023: Faery Ffolke

| wonko

So I reasoned that if I mess with the “Superdude” base, I should be able to re-purpose the “cape” into a set of wings … so set about doing that:

Faery ffolke

In relatively short time I had made my first faery, to be told that it was a boy – and that faeries are typically girls which left a dilemma – how does one endow a gender to these little ffolke?

I, sadly, solved the problem by resorting to archetype, and put a “tutu” on my next one – in no way determining it’s gender, but conforming to the “her” stereotype.

Faery ffolke - tiny ones

I reason that fictional critters that fornicate to make more of themselves must have, biologically, distinct sexes, but I in no way wish to say they must conform to human dress standards, albeit antiquated ones.

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991: 2019-nCoV

| wonko

Human Corona Virus is in the news, the news is alarming:

nCoV macquette

It is difficult to know the extent of the emergency, the effectiveness of treatment, the vector of infection, the spread and infection rate, the facts.

Social media and websites masquerading as “news” agencies love a good headline, and this mixed with Survivor in the jungle, celebrity red carpets, sham impeachment, Corona Virus “influencers” on instagram and fad diets makes navigating the facts difficult.

Public warnings and travel bans aside, what constitutes a pandemic? What is the appropriate response?

I took a 3×1 rectangle of white/natural Ikea Kraft and … well … doodled and came up with an all too familiar image – a face-masked regular person. In an odd bout of synchronicity, Sebastian Limet (@sebl) had the same idea. His fold, as usual has lots of character.

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