WCOG April 8, 2006 Meeting

I've been behind in doing the monthly WCOG music vid journals of our club gatherings. But having read Andrew Hans give a brief report of OUSA (I decided kind of last minute that I wasn't prepared to go this year...breaking my 4 or 5 consecutive years of attendance), and making mention of Yami Yamauchi showing off his magic rings, I got the inspiration to put together a video. I decided to do the April meeting, because I remember it being chock-full of magic show-offs, puzzles, and tricks. We even did some origami. Marcee Raffel (bless her soul!) called me from the late night folding in NY, while I was in the middle of editing the video, tonight. Yami said he brought 200 of those ring packages with him, and already gave them all away. Everywhere he goes, he is always generous; always entertaining folks. The beautiful young girl toward the end along with her gorgeous grandmother are very dear to me. Emily is another one of my gymnasts, and is very special. I'm always happy when my gymnasts also share my love for paperfolding.



April photos may be seen in the WCOG 2006 album.

The Story of Sadako Sasaki as told by Rachel Cohn

While perusing through YouTube, I found this interesting animated version of the story of Sadako Sasaki, by Rachel Cohn.

Robert Lang Interview

from GDC 2005, by Stephen Ackroyd.

Instructions for $ Hexagonal Box

06/13/07 Update: Please view the video at Metacafe. I will be taking down the LiveDigital upload, soon.


This was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Half of the footage is shot at WCOG; as I was teaching it to Jimmy Taggart, Pam Miike expressed interest in it. I had her film part of the steps to folding the lid. I then went back and had Yuki Kelly film the beginning portion of the lid (the lighting is rather dark). The footage I filmed on my back porch on my own turned out surprisingly well, considering I just rested the camera in front of my chest, and tried to keep my hands in view, but not so close as to be out of focus. Even though my camera is a 2.0 megapixel, the resolution looks rather clean, crisp, and clear. I could probably re-shoot the lid like this...but that would entail more work! Hopefully, this is sufficient.

I realize that I didn't do much in the way of explaining the diagonal crease lines that forms the top of the boxlid, and the bottom. Hopefully, people are bright enough from viewing what I'm doing, that a little brainwork and close observation will carry you through the day. I will have you note, though, that on the lid, where the 1st 7th is unequal to the other 6 segments, when you set in the diagonal crease, it does not touch from opposing corner to corner. Use the last segment to lay over it as a template (with its diagonal creaseline already in place), and then set the crease line that way. If you squint your eyes, you can see me doing this in the video. Good luck, and let me know if you are able to successfully do this, and what level you'd rate yourself. It'd be great if even a novice could follow these directions.

Fold neatly....and for the most part, set your creases in sharp. This will especially help you when you have to hold the two ends together and spiral the top/bottom to lay flat. You might use a clothespin to hold the two ends together while you do this.


Origami Moneyfold: Hexagonal Box Out Of Money

(Don't forget: There is a "pause" button).

I've been experimenting with different sizes, including making a box within a box within a box. I forgot to include that clip at the end.

Those with foreign currency, noting the method used, or being familiar with Tomoko Fuse-style boxes, can probably figure out how to fold the model, adapted to their bills.

You can make your own here.

Westland Origami Workshops

Nina Rosen invited me for what I think is my 3rd year out of 5, doing origami at Westland School, off of Mulholland, here in Los Angeles. It all started with one of the parents at Santa Monica Gymnastics Center seeing my origami Christmas tree display in the office; something that I put up every year. She put me in contact with Nina Rosen, who was her son's teacher at the time.

This year, Nina set up something different: instead of one demonstration/teaching session, we set up four 2 hour workshops. So what I tried to do, was build a progressive lesson plan.

These workshops were conducted back in February and March. I began with your typical introduction, showing off traditional models and the evolution into modern origami. In each workshop, I brought something new to show off. I began with teaching Yami's banger, which transitions nicely into a moving mouth. Fairly simple. I also taught Yami's spinner that day. The kids seemed very excited after that first day.

The second workshop, we did a simple swan from a kite base, and covered the reverse fold (required for the head and neck). I encouraged the students to experiment with proportions and go off onto tangents to come up with their own swan/bird by incorporating reverse-folds. Charles Esseltine granted me permission to distribute diagram copies of his delicious french fries. I can't think of a better model to teach that has the simplicity of the traditional papercup, with the joy and ease of shaping the bottom by denting it with your finger; and what beginner can't like fan-folding the fries into 16ths, without having to be perfect at it, and still end up with a great-looking origami model? We covered the waterbomb base, and incorporated it onto index cards for the jumping frogs. I then brought back the previous workshop model, the moving mouth, setting up a big version of it as the target for jumping frogs to hop into the mouth of.

The third workshop, I opened with a demonstration of Kenneth Kawamura's Butterfly Ball (using printed paper created by Lar deSouza). It was a way to revisit the waterbomb base from the previous lesson. We made waterbombs. I think we also did cranes, as I showed how the waterbomb base can be turned inside out, into the preliminary base.

There had been a request for folding paper planes, as I think the first day, I had demonstrated the boomerang cicada glider I like to do. So we did that toward the end, and had a blast flying them around outside on the playground. It was a bit windy, so the breeze sometimes picked the gliders up for a long flight. The kids loved launching them from up high, on the slide.

The last workshop, I taught the Thai tulip, which starts with the waterbomb base I had been hammering into their heads. We also did the 20-piece modular flower. That kept 'em busy.

At the end of each workshop, I had giveaway models for them, including stuff Joe Hamamoto had made, and three of my favorites: the LaFosse butterfly, Arai spinning top, and 22 Montroll horses- my all-time favorite- for 22 wonderful kids, who I hoped I had inspired to continue exploring the magic and fun of folding with paper.


For more pictures, go here.


05/22/2007- It would seem that there are some parents who are angry about the YouTube video. Therefore, the video is now on a private setting, as well as the Westland photo album. I will only make these accessible to family and friends. Sorry.

Announcement

Youtube has disabled my account, due to some crackdown on copyrighted videos that I've had uploaded for months. So none of the videos on this blog will work. I hope to get things straightened out.


UPDATE: I have opened a new account, as YouTube hasn't responded to my e-mail. Being the impatient guy that I am on this, I shall begin uploading the vids all over again. Be patient, and hopefully I will get it all done by the end of the weekend, and it should be like nothing ever happened.


4/11/06- I have a new account. It will take me a while to re-upload all the videos, so be patient.

April 16, 2006- Happy Easter! Pretty much all of my videos are back up (or in the process); anything over 100 MBs or over 10 minutes in length, I have posted through LiveDigital.com, as YouTube is now also enforcing a policy of videos being under those amounts.

Japanese Commercial with Origami

I found this video at Metacafe.com. It appears to be a Japanese commercial for Filemaker Pro. I believe the racer is by David Brill. How much of it incorporates actual origami and how much is just computer animation? Does anyone know what artists contributed to this video, if any?



Also, check these videos out:

When Good Frogs Go Bad

Robert Lang Interview

Chronicles of WCOG (January 2006 Meeting)

You can see photos here. Just look for the album labeled "Westcoast Origami Guild 2006".


Just realized that I forgot to link this other video in the "Festival" archives, from last February. It's from a Chinese New Year Festival Yami and I did at the Chinese-American Museum in downtown Los Angeles.

2006 Rhombic Calendar

Lar deSouza posted the following to the O-List 5 days ago, and I just now took a look at it today:

Happy New Year to one and all!!

I've skipped doing this the past couple years, but then there's been
others who've taken up the slack. For those not familiar with
it, our late dear friend, Thoki Yenn, worked out how to skew the
angles to fit a calendar onto Nick Robinson's most excellent rhombic
dodecahedron. With vector software it was a simple matter for me to
fit things neatly and convert it to a pdf format. Interested folks
can find the file here.

It's six letter sized pages, each with two months on it, and a last
page with Nick Robinson's diagrams (unaltered) in case you can't find them.

I know I've seen these at WCOG meetings before, with John Andrisan always coming out with interesting printings. But I had never taken an interest, really, until now. It's really a cool concept and a nice, fun, easy fold. Thanks to Lar and thanks to Nick and Thoki!!! The photo is taken of the one I folded tonight. I used semi-glossy all-purpose photo paper. It folded very nicely.

A wallet/cardholder

While surfing on Technorati, I found The Fitful Flog and tried my hand at The Three Card Monti. Here is my result. Read Oschene's description of his model.

His purpose in making this was to cut down on the number of cards he has to carry in his wallet. I liked his idea of attaching the savings cards barcodes to it.

Update: step-photos are now available.

Origami Computer Animation

Found this when ChildofSai posted his new origami video to Origami-L.

Year of the Blog

Er...I mean dog...Happy New Year of the Dog ( beginning January 29th). Yami invited me to help him and Joe out last year, at the New Otani Hotel. It was much the same this year, with me once again teaching among other things, papergliders. I also "taught" the 20-unit flower. Joe taught a cute barking dog action model (Jan 29th being the start of the Chinese Year of the Dog). Yami mostly entertained people with his ring and chain trick. He must have been practicing that diligently since the last time I saw him, as his "batting" average improved quite a bit. When it fails, he usually tells the woman he was showing it to, that he gets nervous in the presence of beautiful women. His friend Hideko did most of the teaching at his table (teaching Yami's doodle bug). Joe gave away FIT's to the fortunate few who were last to leave us. As usual, he had plenty of giveaways that he folded for the purpose of sharing origami with the world. One of my favorite parts is the free meal at the end. We buffeted at The Azalea Restuarant. If anyone ever hangs out with Yami and Joe, it's never a dull moment. Yami showed off to the waiters and to patrons. Joe and I passed around origami giveaways. After my meal, I folded up my napkin into something inappropriate (Won Park showed me this at OUSA2002) and discreetly dropped it into Yami's lap. He stood up and proceeded to show patrons at the next table; then pointed to me and said, "Michael made this." I was mortified. I didn't get a very good shot of the "improper napkin-fold", but you can see a half-drunk Yami pose for the camera with it (it had kind of come undone, at this point, and I didn't think to refold it for the sake of posterity).

How to make the 20-unit flower

Phyllis Snyder of the Westcoast Origami Guild says she and Fumi Wakao were taking a class at the University of Irvine. They met a man who asked if they knew how to do a rose. Phyllis showed him a version of a Kawasaki rose. The man then showed what appeared to Phyllis to be the simple 2x1 3-unit flower with the twist tie. But the one the man was doing went on...and on...and on. 20 units total. He didn't invent it; but he did reverse engineer it. And apparently, it was originally a ball, from which he did the single pipe-cleaner twist-tied rose. The past year, this model has made it's way around from when Phyllis taught it to friends at the Matsuri Festival in Phoenix, to it being taught at OUSA2005. Things travel fast.

If anyone can identify the creator, it'd be much appreciated. As far as I can tell, it's gone the route of the 3-unit flower, and traditional models.

I've had some requests on how to fold this model. Since the assembly might be easier to show than to diagram, I thought I'd video it with my digital camera, and see how that works.


It's a roughly made video without audio instructions. The model itself is simple, but it may need experienced folders to follow the directions (I did make this for some O-Listers). It was a quick make while "on the job" at the New Otani; so the camera work was done on the fly, by whoever I could grab to film it. So forgive the lack of close-ups and more detailed, spoon-fed instructions.






What I love about teaching this model, is that I can teach people in bulk, with newcomers joining in at any given point...because it doesn't require me to be "hands-on" the entire time. You teach the simple unit, very easy to do, and that keeps the folder occupied for the next 10 minutes, folding 19 more. When someone new comes to learn, I can delegate teaching authority and ask one of the students, "Hey, can you teach her how to fold the unit?" or "Can you show her how to assemble the pieces?". It helps me, and it helps the folder who wants to be able to remember and teach her friends later.

If anything in the video is not clear enough, or if you have questions, you might consider leaving questions and suggestions in the comment section on this post, since your comment might not be a unique one, and will address what others are wondering about, themselves.

Again, I am just assuming that the experienced folders will be able to fill in whatever blanks are left in.

What a Wonderful Origami World!

Our December, end of the year WCOG meeting, complete with the annual library tree decorating.

The Three Little Origami Pigs

While using Technorati to browse for origami blogs, I came across
this cute idea.






So last night I folded one;






































then today, I filmed the following:




(Diagrams for the first photo models can be found in NOA #315- created by Ms. Chiyo Fukuoka).

Operation: Peace Crane

About a week ago, the OFF-topic post regarding Fallujah and white phosphorus made it's way onto the O-List. An Italian film has stirred up the moonbats(and the not-so-moonbatty) into believing our soldiers used a chemical weapon in the battle to wrest Fallujah free from the clutches of terrorist insurgents and foreign fighters. I challenged the poster on it, off list. An admin weighed in with the expected "lay off politics" warning. Then someone else posted, and I read more into his post than was there. So even though I knew better, I went off on a mini-rant of my own. Since then, I had re-read the post and made my apology to the person I flamed. But the off-topic stimulated agreement that political expression in origami is acceptable, as long as it relates back to origami.

This brings us to this past weekend. I was invited once again to Japan Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Last year, Yami, Joe and I teamed up with fellow WCOG members, Phyllis Snyder and Fumi Wakao. This year, Yami, Joe and I were given free tables to help Rafu Shimpo promote peace cranes and get visitors to the Expo to help fold tsuru and tack them onto a giant 8 foot crane that volunteers had built. Problem with getting people to stop long enough to fold a tsuru is that many wanted to keep their crane. And then there was also this problem: I ended up being by myself. Joe and Yami both contacted me the day before the Festival to let me know that they were sick. Both were suffering from the kind of ailments that come with old age. Joe did want me to pick up a bunch of giveaways that he had folded; so Saturday morning, I drove out to Gardena to his house; then swung by my storage place to pick up my own origami stuff before making it out to the Expo. It was so crowded in the West Hall, that I parked in South Hall and made quite a trek. 3 car-trips that had me sweating and my back and arms feeling like they would break.

I was pretty busy non-stop...sometimes teaching 3 different models all at once. I still like the multi-piece flower with pipe cleaner, as it's a project that doesn't need hands-on instructing the entire time. And any new arrivals to my table can just jump in any time. I can also delegate people to teach it to new arrivals when I'm pre-occupied already. It's that simple.

I was happy to see some of my friends make it down: Kirsten and her family; Cathleen; coworker Sara; Oliva and family; the VNSO crew; a client of mine, Stacey, and her family (that's her daughter Malaika at the end with the eyes popping out of her head when the Robert Neale $butterfly comes to life. That's also her hiding behind her dad, Neil toward the end).

Heading into the Expo and still fuming over the white phosphorus conspiracists...I printed out some camouflage patterns from Operation Peace Crane, as well as Esseltine's Kamiflage (click here for his new link). And as a subtle political statement, I folded some tsuru out of this paper and added them to the giant crane. (I also did a couple out of the American flag; the printing was created by John Andrisan).

I've tried to keep my politics and origami separate. This video does touch upon politics, but not in an overt fashion. It is neither pro-war/anti-peace, nor pro-Bush/anti-Bush, nor siding with a political party. I also didn't want this video to be about the war in Iraq and the Greater War on Terrorism; but one that is about war in the general sense. As the mission statement says on Operation Peace Crane,

Normally, origami cranes are folded using colorful origami paper, and traditional patterns. We hereby propose a new movement by spreading the crane with camouflage patterns of military around the world. Using the camouflage on the cranes represents the irony of war and peace that are inherent in our society, as if one cannot exist without the other. Today, we must confront the stark reality that the military complex is a worldwide industry, sponsored by the government (not to mention tax payers), which in turn supports the lifestyles of the unassuming public.

I chose the quotes I included at the end of the video very carefully; and what I did want to get across politically, is a positive message that is pro-peace, pro-military, and pro-victory. And that is a message that I hope all Americans can get behind and stand together on.

Aquarium of the Pacific Autumn Festival 2005

The adorable girl in the video is one of my dear and delightful gymnasts, Emily:

WCOG Meeting Oct 8, 2005

wcThis wasn't my first choice in music, because it is very slow (not as slow as the Barry Manilow version); but, hey! It has October in its name. I was actually hoping to include a fun, Halloween themed music, but no one brought any Halloween origami; too early in the month, I suppose. We also had a lighter turnout than we've had in a while, perhaps due to this Saturday, not feeling like the 2nd Saturday of the month.

WCOG (9/11) Tribute Meeting