Bookfolding

I often go to the Ridgedale Library to meet with a Socrates Cafe group (I totally recommend you attend). I arrived early one week and wondered about the library, suddenly noticing this:

Each object is a book that has been designated to be thrown away. They are folded, front cover to back cover and then each page is folded in a special way in order to form an interesting whole! Some books, all the pages are folded identically, some alternate in a 1, 2, 1, 2 pattern to create a wavy effect. 

I asked a librarian about it and was given a pamphlet:

It also included a website with an interview with an artist who has made many such sculptures.

I'm not sure what to do with this discovery. I might have to try making one. I suppose I could even bind a book for this purpose specifically, but I really like the recycling nature of the project.

Pop-ups!

Recently, I was killing time in a bookstore and thought I ought to see what origami books they have. Just like most stores, their selection was not particularly impressive, intended to introduce people to the art, or for people who are focused more on other crafts, but want to include a little bit of origami. 

Looking through, I came across a book by Paul Jackson, who I recognized from the film Between the Folds. I was excited to see what origami he had designed, only to discover that it was a guide on how to make pop-ups. I immediately thought of my dad's birthday, and how I might make a possible card. 

I drew a quick sketch so that I could visualize what it would look like at the end. 

Then I figured out where all the cuts would need to go.

Then I made a prototype to see if it could work (I found a couple of mistakes).

Then I made a new cut pattern to accommodate the changes I learned from the prototype.

Then I made a final draft and glued it to a second sheet to make a complete card! 

(Next time, I'll do a better job on the glue.)

Programmable Matter by Folding

I read through the article on self-folding origami and found it to be pretty neat!

They designed a square sheet with 32 rigid tiles that are connected by 20 actuators/hinges to form a crease pattern. Actually, the pattern is the basic windmill base that was so important in the European side of  paper folding! This pattern can make boats, planes, windmills, the Pajarita, horses, fish and such. 

Windmill Base Crease Pattern

They used nitinol which is a metal that can be programmed, via an annealing (heating) process, to a specified shape. For example, if I bent it into a tube and clamped it so that it could not unbend, then annealed it, the tube shape would be locked into the nitinol's memory. When cool, the nitinol can be bend into a different shape, like a cup, but if it were to be heated up again, the nitinol would take on the memory shape, which in the example is a tube.

So anyway, the nitinol was given a memory shape of the hinge being closed, then it was bend open. Once the hinges are heated up, they will close, forcing the sheet to fold. The way they heated up the hinges is to run electricity through them, allowing the resistance of the nitinol to create the heat. This means that they could use electricity to close the creases, but would have to unfold them by hand.

If you want to know more about it, I suggest you read the article!