STEM Origami
FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW in ORDER
1. CLICK on the link for "Our Origami World" and view the video.
2. View "See a NASA Physicist..."
3. View "Japan- New Discoveries in Paper Folding". Yes, I know he is talking in Japanese. Just watch.
4. Go to the link for "Origami Instructions" (above) and see what you can make.
5. Click the link for the Folded Paper Barrel Structure. If you are confident, you may want to try it with a blank piece of paper. If you would like a little help, try downloading the document to the right of it. You can print that paper with lines on it to help you fold in the right spots.
Japan - New Discoveries in Paper Folding
How is Origami Used in Engineering?
Transform a flat sheet into another shape with little processing.
Consider how a 3d printer makes shapes. An expensive and sophisticated machine has to heat the filament to very high temperatures to melt it and then lay it down in dozens, hundreds or thousands of layers to get a new shape.
Machining something requires that a block of material be inserted into an expensive and sophisticated machine that will carve it into the desired shape while creating a lot of waste material that is carved away and has to be reprocessed in order to be recycled.
With origami, all you have to do is fold.
Reduce the dimensions of an object for storage or transport while maintaining its ability to unfold reliably and easily
Increase rigidity of a material.
Folding an characteristically weak material (such as paper) can give it strength it did not previously had. Something weak and flimsy can become rigid and strong.
Folding patterns can create objects that have very specific motions.
Origami is scalable. It can be made bigger or smaller and keep the same properties.
PAPER ARCH HELP
Start by folding the paper in half. Then, fold those halves in half. Then do it again until you have 8 long, skinny rectangles. The folds are all in the same direction so you see the paper start to curve into a cylinder.
Flip your paper over because you are going to start making your folds in the opposite direction. Here is where you fold a diagonal line from the point at the top the fold on the left to the bottom of the fold on the right.
You will continue to fold diagonal lines that are parallel to each other. Looking at the photo, you see that you will begin a phone on "every other" of the original lines, so, skip a line, then begin another diagonal line.
It may be helpful to look at the picture below. When I folded the second diagonal line, I could see that the top edge of the paper intersected the first diagonal line and the one of the original folds such that they created two, symmetrical triangles.
Ultimately, you will end up with diamond shapes that have sides of 2 inches. If this is what you are getting, you are on the right track.
Again, notice that the diagonal lines are folded opposite the direction you folded the original lines. And, again, they should be parallel to each other.
When you finish the diagonals in one direction, do them the other way. You should end up with something like this.
FEEL FREE TO DAW IN GUIDELINES FOR YOURSELF IF YOU WANT.
Once you have all the folds, you should be able to see the arch starting to form. As it forms, you can make little adjustments and re-crease some folds.
Once you get it how you want it, you can even get it to fold flat, and then accordion back out into its arch shape.
Here's another one I did previously from a piece of used printer paper.
