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Moving Cubes

Designed by Jo Nakashima (16/06/2019) Based on the "Pandora's Box" by Yami Yamauchi

Sunday Funnies

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Hat tip:  Morigami

Origami softening impact forces?

Hat tip Morigami:

Scientists develop a metamaterial that can completely dissipate the force from an impact–and even turn it into a counterforce.
Scientists at the University of Washington have created a new shock absorption metamaterial that uses origami to completely absorb a hard impact and transform that crushing force into a gentle pull. The findings have potential implications in everything, from delivering packages via drones to landing spaceships.

According to one of the research authors—UW associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics Jinkyu Yang—”if you were wearing a football helmet made of this material and something hit the helmet, you’d never feel that hit on your head.” In fact, by the time the impact energy reaches you, he says, it has been transformed from a crushing push to a light pull.
When you see it in action, it looks like magic. The idea of using a shape that can transform pushing forces into pulling forces is impossibly counterintuitive—something the researchers admit themselves.
The secret is the metamaterial’s geometry. “Metamaterials are like Lego,” Yang said in a press release. “You can make all types of structures by repeating a single type of building block, or unit cell as we call it. Depending on how you design your unit cell, you can create a material with unique mechanical properties that are unprecedented in nature.”
The UW research—published today in the journal Science Advances—got inspiration from origami to create 20 of these flexible unit cells, using a laser-cutting plotter to create physical models of a geometric shape they developed using computer simulations.
Then they put together the segments in a long truss. Each of the segments in the metamaterial then acts as a “folding crease,” which has the capability of softening an impact as it travels through the truss. In fact, as the shock advances through each segment, the segment before it bounces part of the energy back, pulling the next segment until the chain eventually dissipates the push force generating a soft draw instead.
Scientists then tested their initial computer models with the physical model by applying a compression force, recording the behavior using six GoPro cameras filming in slow-motion. And indeed, it worked exactly as the simulation predicted, turning compression forces into pull forces.
The way the unit cells fold is crucial, according to research coauthor Yasuhiro Miyazawa, who is completing an aeronautics and astronautics doctorate at the University of Washington: “[The origami] unit cell softens the force it feels when someone pushes on it, and it accentuates the tension that follows as the cell returns to its normal shape.”
The applications are countless: “Impact is a problem we encounter on a daily basis, and our system provides a completely new approach to reducing its effects,” Yang said.

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POP Meeting: Birds and things that fly

There was a good sized turnout today, with quite a number of first-timers.

Sunday Funnies

Origamist "Burglar"?

Origamists make for even nice burglars:

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Whoever broke into a Massachusetts man’s home last week didn’t take a thing. They did, however, leave the house spotless. 

Nate Roman tells The Boston Globe that when he returned to his Marlborough home from work May 15, he could tell a stranger had been there.
Nothing was missing, but the 44-year-old Roman noticed the beds were made, the rugs vacuumed and the toilets scrubbed. They even crafted origami roses on the toilet paper rolls. 

He called the experience “weird and creepy” and contacted police.
Sgt. Daniel Campbell says that the department hasn’t heard of similar episodes and that there are no suspects. 

Roman says he may have left his back door unlocked. He thinks perhaps a housekeeping service went to his home by mistake.

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Ange Ecija Blanco's Self-Closing Box

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One of my favorite containers.  I am glad it's more freely out there in public.  Angel shared this, but a bit more obscure as I think it was only accessible if you visited his FB.

When I had the die made to stamp the crease pattern onto cardstock to make his model easier for beginners to fold, I had asked him for permission to do so.

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Some sights and sounds from the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival

My exhibit display:

The Origins of the Chinese Fortune Cookie Started with a Japanese-American

I've seen Brian Kito do his mochi & manju stage demonstration for over a decade, each year at the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival; but usually I'm too busy at my own tables to pay close attention.

This year I was happy to be able to take a break and watch and film his demo. I was shocked to learn about the murky origins of the Chinese fortune cookie; and how that in all likelihood, it's a Japanese-American invention.

Sorry about the audio quality, but listen to Brian explain how the origin has been traced back to his grandfather.

http://www.fugetsu-do.com/history.htm

From Wikipedia:

Seiichi Kito, the founder of Fugetsu-do of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, also claims to have invented the cookie.[8] Kito claims to have gotten the idea of putting a message in a cookie from Omikuji (fortune slip) which are sold at temples and shrines in Japan. According to his story, he sold his cookies to Chinese restaurants where they were greeted with much enthusiasm in both the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Thus Kito's main claim is that he is responsible for the cookie being so strongly associated with Chinese restaurants.[citation needed]
Up to around World War II, fortune cookies were known as "fortune tea cakes"—likely reflecting their origins in Japanese tea cakes.[2]
Fortune cookies moved from being a confection dominated by Japanese-Americans to one dominated by Chinese-Americans sometime around World War II. One theory for why this occurred is because of the Japanese American internment during World War II, which forcibly put over 100,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps, including those who had produced fortune cookies. This gave an opportunity for Chinese manufacturers.

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