A blogsite not for me to bloviate; but for me to share my origami videos with the origami community. I am affiliated with the Westcoast Origami Guild, Pacific Ocean Paperfolders, Origami Paperfolders of San Diego, Origami USA, and the Origami Interest Group (Origami-L/O-List).
(1) There’s a few errors in their chronology on that page. I’ve sent them corrections. Until then, FAKE NEWS! Sad!
(2) At one point, I seem to be saying I invented an airbag. Which is wrong. (I contributed to an airbag algorithm.) I expect the Senate to investigate.
(3) I borrowed a line from Marty Demaine in BTF at one point. Marty, your royalty check is in the mail.
The device, developed by Brigham Young University—a private research university in Utah—is a foldable kevlar shield designed to protect officers in high-risk situations. The foldable shield weighs only a little bit more than a suitcase and is made from 12 layers of bullet-proof kevlar. Its folding design was also inspired by origami.
Despite its low weight, the shield is capable of stopping a .44 Magnum, 9mm, and .355 Magnum, according to reports. We will keep you posted on whether or not departments start implementing this device.
Going from medieval to state of the art through the ancient art of origami technology:
When mechanical engineering professor Larry Howell began work on a new ballistic shield, police officers told him that their current gear was “kind of medieval.”
“Most of them are still basically just … a big chunk of steel with handles on it, and so they tend to be very heavy,” he tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. Many of them weigh nearly 100 pounds.
But a new folding kevlar shield, developed by Professor Howell, his colleague Terri Bateman, and other faculty and graduate students at Brigham Young University, weighs 55 pounds, fits in the trunk of a car, unfolds in seconds, and covers more than one officer. It can also take a hit from a .44 Magnum handgun without ripping or tipping over.
Together, these features could make the shield much better-suited to police work than current technology.
“It's easily transportable, and it provides protection for more than one officer,” says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, after watching video of the shield in action. “So I think that if the test results hold up, this could be an important option for police departments to consider.”
The BYU team derived these advantages from an unlikely source. “Origami artists, over the centuries, had discovered interesting ways to achieve motion that we wouldn't have discovered using our traditional engineering approaches,” Howell explains.
His past work has used origami techniques to shrink NASA payloads and medical devices. Through discussions with federal agents and local police, “We realized that having a compact bulletproof barrier that's easy to transport, easy to stow, and then deploys very quickly, and is light, has a lot of benefits.”
“It seems kind of weird that you could go from origami … to something that's bulletproof,” Howell acknowledges. But by applying a Yoshimura fold pattern to a sheet with 12 layers of Kevlar – plus an aluminum core for stability – the researchers created a shield that can withstand hits from 9-millimeter, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum pistols.
A federal agent involved in the testing “said that it was revolutionary,” Howell remembers.
Learn origami from master folder Travis Taft, who's been folding origami patterns most of his life. Travis
will teach some simple models to beginners and support more advanced
folders. The club meets monthly and it's the perfect venue to learn as
well as swap tips. Just bring your curiosity—we will have all the supplies that you need.
Wesley Guo of Cal Origami at UC Berkeley advertised their annual convention to the O-List, scheduled for November 13th:
This will be the first year since 2013 that the club is hosting theconvention. For that reason, we chose Rebirth and Renewal to be the themeof the event. For more details about convention, including registration and how to submitdiagrams for our convention book, please visit our website athttps://calorigami.berkeley.edu/eboc.
U.S. President Barack Obama presents two of his hand-folded origami
cranes to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward
on May 27. The photograph, provided by the Foreign Ministry, will be
displayed at the museum through the end of August.
My third post on the topic (people are going to start assuming I am a fan of the current president):
HIROSHIMA--A photograph of U.S. President Barack Obama and origami cranes he made to mark his historic visit to this city in May went on display June 30 at the atomic bomb museum here. Museum officials said visitor numbers have soared since the president's visit to the city. The photo was exhibited at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum after it was provided by the Foreign Ministry at the request of the city government.
Am still curious to know the back story on who helped him fold these.
The director had contacted me through the WCOG fB page. She was looking for someone to fold hot air balloons and I put her in touch with the Shumakovs. Check out Windows:
Windows is a
near-future science fiction short that deals with the currently emerging
technologies of computer-human interface and artificial intelligence. This
project is a compelling exploration of the personal impact these technologies
may have on our lives. Windows tells the story of Luz, a woman who
lives in a future where humans can choose to give up their individuality to
merge into a single entity. Maru Buendia-Senties is
an award-winning writer/director with extensive experience in Visual Effects
from working with Robert Rodriguez on films like Predators and Machete, and
collaborating with ReelFX on the film Parkland. Windows is her most ambitious project yet and she has assembled a
team of seasoned professionals with credits including: Game of Thrones,
Boyhood, and The Hobbit, to make Windows a truly spectacular film. Now we need YOUR HELP to cross the finish
line!
One of the perks for contributing $250 would be
One beautiful 9" tall, hand-crafted origami hot air balloon made by the fine folks at Oriland. These works of art were used as props on the "Windows" set and are featured in the film (http://bit.ly/oriballoons).
Next month sees the publication of ‘Zen Doodle Origami’ by
Sussex-based author and illustrator Carolyn Scrace. In April, there
will be a rush of titles: ‘Colour-Gami: Colour and Fold Your Way to
Calm’; ‘The Book of Mindful Origami: Fold Paper, Unfold Your Mind’;
and ‘Zen Origami: 20 Modular Forms for Meditation and Calm’. Some of
these books come with sheets of origami paper, which you can colour in
before folding them into a crane, a lotus flower or a Samurai helmet.
Read the article at the link. Hat tip: Paula Versnick and Faye Goldman (via Facebook).
Smith, who died in 1991, was, according to his friends,
always collecting things, and his groups of objects would constantly
morph: because he moved frequently, bits and pieces would be lost from
one long-term hotel stay to another.
Smith’s
paper-airplane collection was one of the oddest of his many odd
collections. (Among other things, he also accumulated string figures and
Ukrainian Easter eggs.) Most of the paper airplanes were found in the
streets and buildings of New York. (The map below plots the locations).
Smith was “always, always, always looking” for new airplanes, one friend
said: “He would run out in front of the cabs to get them, you know,
before they got run over. I remember one time we saw one in the air and
he was just running everywhere trying to figure out where it was going
to be. He was just, like, out of his mind, completely. He couldn’t
believe that he’d seen one. Someone, I guess, shot it from an upstairs
building.” It’s not clear how many airplanes Smith collected in total;
he would flatten them for storage, and friends recall seeing boxes and
boxes of them. Smith’s “spiritual wife,” the Beat muse Rosebud Feliu
Pettet, estimated that there were “multiple” boxes, “more than two, less
than fifty.” Friends recall that Smith donated the bulk of his
paper-airplane collection to the Smithsonian in the eighties. The museum
sent a box containing two hundred and fifty-one planes, which he picked
up between 1961 and 1983, to the Anthology Film Archive in 1994, at the
request of the director of Smith’s personal archive, but it’s unclear
what happened to the rest. The photos in this slide show are taken from a
new collection, by J & L Books and the Anthology Film Archives,
that contains images of all the airplanes in the surviving box.
Hi everyone, A while back, a mother of a young man who had died suddenly of a heart attack reached out to me to design an origami heart that could be folded in 12 steps. Here's the story behind this request. Justin Carr was the young man's name, and his heart attack was caused by pediatric cardiomyopathy, which had gone undetected. There exists a 12-question heart attack assessment that, in Europe, has proved over the last 25 years to be over 85% effective in saving lives. Currently, only 6% of U.S. doctors even know that these questions exist. These questions can be found here:http://www.origamihearttrust.org/index.php/59-pediatric-cardiomyopathy/youth-heart-health-assessment/96-12-questions The mother wanted to use origami to publicize this assessment because her son had once used origami to reach out to a very shy young girl. The story can be found here:http://www.origamihearttrust.org/index.php/mission/inspiration The 12-step origami heart integrates Justin's love of people, his skill with origami, and the 12-step assessment program which has the potential to save many young lives. I am continually inspired by Justin's story, and by the dedication of his parents to create something meaningful and positive out of their pain. Here is the heart that I designed in Justin's memory:http://www.origamihearttrust.org/index.php/get-involved/learn/how-to-fold-our-heart
Isabelle,8, left, and Katherine, 6, Adams have made origami ornaments to
sell to raise money for water wells in needy countries. , Wednesday
March 21, 2012.
“Every 15 seconds a child dies because they don’t have clean water.”
Isabelle Adams, 8, shares this tragic fact as she shows the handmade
origami ornaments that she and her sister Katherine, 6, make to raise
funds for Living Water International (water.cc), a Houston-based charity
that drills water wells in Ethiopia and other developing countries.
The
girls learned about Ethiopia’s need for clean water last year through a
YouTube video highlighting a Midland company’s project
(projects.lemishine.com). The video describes the plight of rural
families whose only source of water often is polluted and many miles
away.
The sisters and their parents, Ken and Deborah Adams, were
moved by the video. “The children have to drink dirty water,” Katherine
says. “And they have to walk so far to get the water that they can’t go
to school.” Inspired to help, the Dallas family set out to raise money
for a well to help others halfway around the world.
Ken, a Dallas
physician whose mother was Japanese, suggested that they employ origami,
the ancient art of folding paper into complex, three-dimensional
shapes. His girls already knew how to fold some origami pieces, because
he had taught the craft to them in the car-pool line.
Making
origami Christmas ornaments became a family project they call Paper for
Water. Through fundraisers at local businesses, orders from friends and a
matching contribution from Midland company Envirocon Technologies
(which makes Lemi Shine and other cleaning products) in 2011, Paper for
Water raised the $9,200 needed to fully fund a well. It serves 520
people in Ethiopia.
Asked how it feels to pay for a well by
themselves, Deborah Adams says: “We didn’t do it alone. Our friends,
family and neighbors helped us make the ornaments and spread the word.
We had lots of help.”
And now that the Ethiopian well is completed, what’s next?
“We
are thinking about funding a well in northern India,” Deborah says.
India’s poor, rural population faces the same water woes as Ethiopia and
other African countries.
Deborah Adams,
left, Katherine, 6, center, and Isabelle, 8, right, create origami
ornaments to sell to raise money for water wells for needy countries at
their dining room table., Wednesday March 21, 2012.
To test people, JAXA isolates small groups of astronaut candidates for
days at a time and makes them do menial tasks. Mary Roach’s excellent
book Packing For Mars talks about one of those tasks: folding 1,000 origami cranes.
In traditional Japanese culture, folding 1,000 paper cranes is
supposed to bring good luck; at JAXA, folding cranes tests how crazy
you’ll go if you have to fold 1,000 paper cranes. Roach explains:
The genius of the Thousand Cranes test is that it creates
a chronological record of each candidate’s work. As they complete their
cranes, candidates string them on a single long thread. At the end of
the isolation, everyone’s string of cranes will be taken away and
analyzed. It’s forensic origami: As the deadline nears and the pressure
increases, do the candidate’s creases become sloppy? How do the first
ten cranes compare to the last?
And it’s not just origami cranes that are analyzed with a fine tooth
comb. Every single little detail of an astronaut candidate’s performance
is put under the microscope.
I can understand why JAXA does all of this. I mean, if
you’re going to spend millions of dollars to send somebody up into
space, you should probably make sure that they’re suited for the job.
During a week-long continuous observation session, candidates have to
fold a thousand origami cranes. These cranes are then analyzed by a
team of psychologists to see how the person deals with boring,
repetitive tasks and time constraints. The psychologists check whether
the folds get less precise at the end of the task, and see how they
compare with the first ones.
Like a lot of things in Japan, there’s an explanation for why it’s
done, but no other countries have anything similar to it, and you’re
left wondering if there wouldn’t be a test that’s more closely related
to actual space missions.
Hat tip: Andrew Dewar on the Origami-L, as a follow-up to Karen Reeds' post.
What do pizza boxes, paper bags, and fancy napkins have in common? Well, you might have guessed it -- origami. Origami, the ancient art of paper folding, is making a comeback.
While some of the oldest pieces of origami have been found in ancient
China and its deepest roots are in ancient Japan, origami can make an
impact in today's education too. This art form engages students and
sneakily enhances their skills -- including improved spatial perception
and logical and sequential thinking.
An Art Form for All Subjects
Don’t believe me? Researchers have found a number of ways that
origami can make lessons enticing, while giving students skills they
need. (Think of it as vegetables blended into spaghetti sauce.) Here are
some ways that origami can be used in your classroom to improve a range
of skills:
November 11th is known commonly as Veterans' Day, Remembrance Day, or
Armistice Day around the world, but it has also been designated as
Origami Day by the Nippon Origami Association. Origami is the well-known art of folding paper into desired shapes.
According to the NOA, origami first began in Japan around the time paper
was introduced from China in the 7th century. It was originally used to
help decorate places for religious rituals, but slowly evolved over the
centuries into an aesthetic art form with multiple schools of disciple.
These days, most consider true origami to be accomplished by using only
folds, no cuts or pastes.
One of the most commonly folded and famous origami shapes is the
paper crane. It is recognized, particularly in Japan, as a symbol of
hope, peace, and longevity. One popular story depicting this symbolism
is that of Sadako Sasaki. She was a young girl who suffered from
leukemia caused by the radiation released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb
at the end of World War II. The commonly told version of her story goes
that she believed if she could fold 1,000 paper cranes she would be
granted a wish. However, she passed away before accomplishing the feat.
School children around the world still fold paper cranes in her honor.
November 11th was chosen as Origami Day by the NOA because it
matched the idea of peace expressed in Armistice Day, the end of World
War I in 1918. 11/11 also symbolizes the four sides of a square - the
most commonly used starting paper shape for Origami folders.
If I had an obsession this year, it would be paper. Not just origami, seriously, it was just paper.
Paper is a lot like a person in a way. You can do things with it but at the end of the day, it's still paper. You can use it to hold stuff. You can use it to pass information. You can also use it to appeal to someone's emotions. You can alter the shape by folding or tearing but it is still paper. Paper is the ultimate open-ended toy.
After two
years of research, the space agency has come closer to that goal by
creating a solar array with a diameter of 8.9ft (2.7 metres) when folded
and 82ft (25 metres) when unfurled.
The design, which looks like a flower blooming, was created by Nasa mechanical engineer, Brian Trease.
Mr Trease
partnered with researchers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah,
to pursue the idea that spacecraft could be built using origami folds.
Sending
the solar arrays up to space would be easy, Mr Trease said, because
they could all be folded and packed into a single rocket launch, with
'no astronaut assembly required.'
Panels used in space missions already incorporate simple folds, collapsing like a fan or an accordion.
One
technique that has been used for an origami-inspired solar array is
called a Miura fold invented by Japanese astrophysicist Koryo Miura.
When you open the structure, it appears to be divided evenly into a checkerboard of parallelograms.
With
this particular fold, there's only one way to open or close it: Pull on
one corner and the whole thing is open with only a tiny amount of
effort.
Mr
Miura intended this fold for solar arrays, and in 1995 a solar panel
with this design was unfolded on the Space Flyer Unit, a Japanese
satellite.
~~~
The fold that Mr Trease and colleagues used is not a Miura fold, but rather a combination of different folds.
Mr Trease's prototype looks like a blooming flower that expands into a large flat circular surface.
Mr Trease envisions that foldable solar arrays could be used in conjunction with small satellites called CubeSats.
And
he says the origami concept could be used in antennas as well. It could
be especially appropriate for spacecraft applications where it's
beneficial to deploy an object from the centre, outward in all
directions.
Origami
was originally intended for folding paper, which has almost no
thickness, so Mr Trease and colleagues had to be creative when working
with the bulkier materials needed for solar panels.
'You
have to rethink a lot of that design in order to accommodate the
thickness that starts to accumulate with each bend,' he said.
The art has been the subject of serious mathematical analysis only within the last 40 years, Mr Trease said.
There is growing interest in integrating the concepts of origami with modern technologies.
'You think of it as ancient art, but people are still inventing new things, enabled by mathematical tools,' he said.
NYTimes talks about the rise of online tutorials in comparison to "traditional" books and diagrams:
For
centuries, lovers of the ancient art had to consult books to uncover
such secrets. Increasingly, though, experts and novices alike are
learning about origami through online films and videos.
There are animated shorts — like Sipho Mabona’s “Origami Rhino Unfolding,” a 21-second wonder of stop motion animation — and commercials, like one Mr. Lang did for Mitsubishi,
in which an S.U.V. rolls through a forest and then a city constructed
purely of origami figures. There are documentaries, like Vanessa Gould’s
seminal 2008 film “Between the Folds,” and scores of time-lapse shorts, like “Origami Scaled Koi,”
by a Munich folder, Sara Adams, condensing 14 ½ hours of labor into a
minute-long video. Perhaps reflecting the ever-growing complexity of
some pieces, there are even “making of” films, like the one produced for
Mr. Mabona’s origami installation “The Plague,” a socially conscious work in which stacks of dollar bills are transformed into a swarm of locusts.
And
then there are the online tutorials, which teach in ways that origami
books, with their arrows and dotted lines and static images, never
could. Creators of these videos, like Ms. Adams, have their own fan
bases, with their most popular lessons drawing millions of YouTube hits.
“The
advantage is that you can show the continuous action from one step to
the next,” Mr. Lang said. “In book instructions, each diagram gives you a
snapshot, and you have to infer the action between these snapshots. Now
that we have video, you can see the action. You can slow things down
and move back and forth between folds.”
The four-day OrigamiUSA convention, held at the Fashion Institute of
Technology in New York, drew 650 people from a dozen countries across
the Americas, Europe and Asia. The largest contingent was from the U.S.,
followed by Japan. And the convention is serious business — each
attendee received a “survival kit,” which included a packet of origami
paper and a giant schedule of the 215 classes offered.
Susan Wettling, of Knoxville, Tenn., was seeking help from Hajime
Komiya, a Tokyo-based origami artist. Despite no shared language, Mr.
Komiya was walking her through the steps. “I knew he was going to be at
this convention and needed his help,” Ms. Wettling said.
Soon after the convention opened on Friday, a crowd had gathered at
the colorful display of origami models, which represented the classes
offered, ranging in level from simple to complex.
By Saturday morning, 20 classes were sold out, including Jeremy
Shafer’s “One-Piece Super Boomerang.” Primarily a juggler and children’s
entertainer, Mr. Shafer is the author of three origami books and has an
origami YouTube channel with about 25 million views and 70,000
subscribers.
He spent two days designing the one-sheet boomerang. Over the course
of 50 rejects, he realized his mistake was in making it like a pinwheel.
“I had to do a special move” to get the four arms into an exact “X,” he
said.
Robert J. Lang’s 3D origami cat was another sellout class. A physicist and engineer, with dozens of patents, who became a full-time origami artist, Mr. Lang says the math ideas behind the art form of origami have applications in engineering.
Such examples are air bags, medical implants as well as solar arrays
and telescopes that have to get into the rockets that carry them.
“Folding helps make a big thing small in a controlled way,” he said.
