Tag Archives: origami

The 1000 Cranes Project

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The ones I'm folding are just a bit more simplistic/traditional

The ones I’m folding are just a bit more simplistic/traditional

I recently mentioned one of my New Year’s Ambitions is fold 1000 origami paper cranes.1 As an ancient Japanese legend goes, a person who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a single wish.  There are some variations on this legend.  It’s possible that you “only” get eternal good luck rather than a wish.  There may also be a requirement for all the cranes to be folded by just one person, folded within a single year, the wish may only be made by the person who folded the cranes, and/or the person who folded the cranes must keep the cranes.

Whether the result is a wish, “merely” eternal good luck, or just a really impressive project this is something I want to do.  I’ve given a lot of thought to how I want to display them too – but that’s probably best left to another post entirely.

A little while ago I ordered two sets of 500 sheets of 3″ square origami paper.  They arrived on 4/17/2013 and I debated about when to start folding them.  I know the next two months is going to be super busy – and I would rather start later and be able to devote time to the project than start now and potentially doom myself to interruptions and possible faltering in my resolve.  Over dinner on 4/18/2013 I mentioned this dilemma to my wife.  She pointed out that there will always be interruptions, I might as well start now, and that she knew I could do it.2 Thus, I started folding cranes that evening.

I’m debating about how exactly to share my crane folding progress here on the blog.  Part of me wants to write a WordPress plugin that integrates a Google Docs spreadsheet with Google Graphs to show the latest progress here on the blog.  While I still like this idea and will probably come back to it later – that’s a lot of work to show off progress when I could spend that time actually folding some little birds.

This last week at work has been really really really busy, so there were two days when I folded no cranes at all.  Most other days I folded between 20 and 25 and a day like yesterday I folded only 9.  At an average of 10 cranes a day (which is very doable) 1000 cranes would only take 100 days or a little more than three months.

As of last night, I had folded 111 cranes in 9 days.

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  1. Photo courtesy of Emre Ayaroglu  [↩]
  2. I love the hell out of that woman. [↩]

A Fellow Origamist

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Hi there, this is Emmett, and when Makerblock found out I was a fellow origamist, he invited me to post some of what I've folded.  I like modular origami, so that's mostly what's here.  I didn't invent any of these designs, but I honestly can't remember any more where I found the instructions.
This buckyball is made of 90 pieces of paper, 5 each of 12 colors plus 30 white.
A cube made of six pieces.
A Kawasaki Rose.  One of the only things I know how to fold out a single piece of paper, and probably one of the most difficult (for me at least).
I don't remember what this is called.  It has 30 pieces, 5 each of 6 colors.
Five intersecting tetrahedra.  It's sort of cheating because each piece starts as a 1x3 rectangle instead of a square.  If you look closely you can see the dodecahedron and icosahedron formed by the tetrahedra.

Lazzersaurus Rex, I choose you!

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Tony Buser, my origami laser dinosaurs accept your challenge.

SyFy Movie: MakerBlock origami laser dinosaurs Vs Buser's Laser Dinsosaur

SyFy Movie: MakerBlock origami laser dinosaurs Vs Buser's Laser Dinsosaur

Oh.  Dang.  That did not appear to go well for Team Buser. 1  You probably didn’t realize the scale of those origami dinosaurs before issuing your challenge.  See, that’s a laser canon, not a laser pointer.

Also, sorry about your robot dinosaur.  I’ll print you a new one.  :) 2

  1. You see, I use EVIL origami paper. [↩]
  2. Friends again? [↩]

MakerBot Origami

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1. Or, “Design Constraints and Creativity”

Origami is another of my hobbies and it is all about design constraints. 1 The rules are simple2 – one square sheet of paper only manipulated by folding. 3  Yet, within these rules it is theorized that a sufficiently skilled artisan can design and fold any arbitrary figure.  I find folding origami to be at once cathartic and contemplative. 4

Pondering the design constraints within origami reminded me of one of my own recent designs – the 3x2x1 Rubik’s style puzzle cube.  Quite apart from the medium or subject matter, I really liked the idea of a single print job resulting in parts that could be immediately hand-assembled without tools to form a useful object.  Then I thought – if the design constraints are one of the things I like about this design, what else is possible within these same constraints?

Thus, I propose a new style of “MakerBot Origami”:  One MakerBot print5 , multiple components6 , no tools or hardware7 .

What’s the coolest most awesome thing you can design within these constraints?

Update:  Cyrozap – sory fore mispellnig yoru mane.

((I waffled on that title.))
  1. I waffled on that title. [↩]
  2. Modern origami rules, anyhow. [↩]
  3. Designing an origami model is not about figuring a way to cheat those rules – rather a way to work within them to achieve a desired goal. [↩]
  4. I recall one origami master referring to the folding of a particularly difficult and rewarding model as invigorating. [↩]
  5. Or, as Cryozap Cyrozap calls them, “production file.” [↩]
  6. Otherwise, people would be making whistles. [↩]
  7. Thus, no bottle openers [↩]

Circle packing, Origami, and RepRap

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Eric Joisel's "Woman in Dress 2008"

Eric Joisel's "Woman in Dress 2008"

One of my interests outside MakerBot/RepRap is origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.  At it’s inception it was really only a hobby for the rich – the only ones who had access to such a luxury as paper.  Modern technical origami restricts one to only a single sheet of square paper transformed only through folding – no cuts, glue, tape, etc.

A lot of very interesting origami models have been developed over the years by some incredibly talented artists through a combination of experience and trial and error.  These kinds of models have so much personality they almost appear to be real – rather than mere squares of paper.  One of my favorite origami artists of this “genre” is Eric Joisel.  I still find it hard to believe his models, such as the “Woman in Dress 2008,” can really be made of just a single square of paper.

There’s been a movement in the last two decades to bring a more methodical and mathematical approach to design, sometimes with the assistance of a computer.  One of my favorite technical origami artists is Robert Lang).  His models tend to the more realistic, rather than representational (as with Joisel).  His insects, such as the stag beetle, are a prime example.

Lang has used his background in mathematics and origami to develop a giant collapsing/expandable lens – so that it could be transported to outer space and then deployed.  This allows a normal space craft to deploy a much larger lens than would otherwise be possible.

Robert Lang's "Stag Beetle BP, opus 477"

Robert Lang's "Stag Beetle BP, opus 477"

Unlike Josiel’s models which are typically totally unique and irreproducible by anyone (including Josiel!) Lang’s mathematically assisted models are usually carefully documented by diagrams or, increasingly frequently, crease patterns.  A crease pattern is what you would get if you totally unfolded a completed origami model.  Typically only the “major” structural folds are depicted in a crease pattern.

Brian Chan's "Attack of the Kracken"

Brian Chan's "Attack of the Kracken"

An interesting intersection between mathematics and origami is the problem of determining the most efficient manner of placing the most number of equally sized circle within the smallest possible area, called, “circle packing.”  The reason this is important to origami is that the center of each circle can be turned into an appendage.  Lang has developed a computer program that allows the creation of truly arbitrary proportions – any number of points with any kind of ratio of one appendage to another.

Brian Chan's crease pattern for "Attack of the Kraken"

Brian Chan's crease pattern for "Attack of the Kraken"

Even to someone who doesn’t have any experience with origami or the mathematics involved, the appearance of circles in crease patterns can start to make intuitive sense.  One of my all time favorite origami models is the “Attack of the Kraken” by Brian Chan.  (Check out the larger pictures of that model.  The entire thing is just one sheet of paper.  If you look closely you’ll see some of the tentacles are grabbing sailors!)  In addition to a picture of his final model he has also posted a picture of his crease pattern for that model, even labeling which parts of the model are derived from which regions of the sheet of paper.

I was reminded by all of this after reading Nophead’s recent post on circle packing as it relates to the optimal placement of resistors on a heated RepRap bed and reading Cory Doctorow’s Makers in which one of the characters is an avid origami folder.  As with RepRap, origami allows the production of complex models through an additive manipulation (layers with RepRap, folding with origami) of a simple material (plastic versus paper) in a methodical and repeatable process.

If you’re the least bit interested in origami, I’d highly recommend (in this order) Peter Engel’s “Origami from Angelfish to Zen,” a documentary on origami called “Between the Folds,” and Lang’s book “Origami Design Secrets.”  The Angelfish to Zen book is one of my favorite books for background on origami and a very accessible introduction to the hidden geometry  underlying even the most simple models (and real life too!).

Internet Famous! (Again! And other musings on my amazing trip to celebrity)

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It seems like only three short months ago I was internet famous.  Oh, how fickle the internet gods!

The ball joint I designed a little while ago just hit the featured things page.  I think it is the only thing I have designed for which someone else created a derivative.  Just after I posted the ball joint r3becca posted her amazing Beco Blocks.  (I do not for a moment think r3becca’s blocks are a derivative or even inspired by my own shoddy work.  I mention the timeline simply because I am always astounded how often two people can come up with slightly similar solutions totally independently of one another.  My favorite example is the feud between two origami masters who each claimed to have designed the same origami pig, nicknamed the “Case of the Purloined Pig.”  If you’re interested in origami, you should check out Peter Engel’s “Origami from Angelfish to Zen,” and this essay from the Bay Area Rapid Folder’s website on origami ethics).  The ball joint I created is printed as a single piece and then snapped so it can then rotate, but the result is only okay.  If the flanges that hold the ball joint in place are too thin, they’ll pop off.  If there are too many threads between the ball and the flanges, it won’t rotate.

R3becca’s solution is far more elegant – two pieces printed separately that pop together and stay connected well.  The best part is that it has almost a complete range of movement.  If I needed to add a ball joint system to an existing model, I’d almost certainly use one of the Beco Block assemblies as the connecting mechanism.

https://makerblock.com/2010/02/internet-famous/