Piled Higher and Deeper

The title may or may not be stolen from a comic that I read regularly, although it is related to my latest model. That's right, after almost a year of designing nothing I finally sat down and started folding on a break between university and my summer job. I've had the idea for quite some time, but (as the model reflects) I've had little free time to go through with the idea and for the most part I prefer to just relax on that free time. The model is an arm reaching out from pages of a book as though someone (i.e. me) has been sucked into the textbook, and I figure the title "Ack!-ademia" works well. When originally getting a coming up with the book on its own, I managed to "re-design" David Brill's simple little book. The final design uses the same pattern with a bit of extra box pleating on the side. Here is the CP:


The layers get a bit thick in the arm, so I added the diamond in the middle to distribute them a bit better. Moving the diamond left makes a thicker arm but thinner cover (seeing as the extra flap can be hidden under the cover). Unfortunately, I didn't design the model quickly enough so for now I have to post a copy-paper rendition of the model. In my next break between work and school I plan to refold it along with any other design I come up with for the summer.

Also, for anyone who is going to the OUSA convention this year, I just recently registered and hope to see you there! I've also signed up to teach my Facebook logo at the convention, which I hope that people will enjoy.

Sssssssssss...

Every so often when browsing through my contacts photos on flickr, I come across a subject that just screams at me to give it a try. I've mentioned in past articles how some folders will just fold the same subject as other folders until suddenly (for example) there are 8 new loon designs by different authors. This time however it was the comment under the photo that got my attention. Juston Hairgrove recently designed a Creeper (from the popular game Minecraft) and wrote "I may revisit the subject matter if I can hone my BP skills enough to put a color change face on it."

My immediate reaction was to make just the face, seeing as I've been making plenty of colour change models lately and the pattern is very simple. The first few drafts from a windmill base turned out to be missing part of the mouth. Also, I realized that the design from the windmill base couldn't possibly be added to a body. My next few drafts worked on making the face from the edge instead so that a body could be added. Pretty soon I started working on the body (despite not intending to), and I could tell right away that I didn't have enough paper to make the closed, seamless form of Juston's model. Instead, I had to deal with an open back and annoying seam down the middle of the body. I also didn't have much to make the legs out of, so my final solution was to simply add a pleat to look like the separation between front and back legs. Here is my crease pattern:


If the CP looks a bit strange, that is because it's actually two CPs combined. Outside of the grey box is the CP for the face pattern. After that, you're left with a rectangle the size of the grey box with the face. The folds shown inside the box are the folds used on the body. With plenty of tweaking, you should end up with something like this little fellow:


But wait, there's more! For the origami artists reading this, I'm sure someone could make a better creeper body than what I made. My original idea was to collaborate with Juston and make a face for his model, but after making it I could tell that there wouldn't be enough paper. If you do make a new body, let me know and I will be happy to feature it here!

Hurry Up, Olympics!

I've always loved sports in general, so its safe to say that the Olympics is a pretty big deal to me (after the FIFA World Cup, of course). I'm now finding that the Olympics are a lot farther off than expected, seeing as I'm no longer in high school and my summer break begins so much earlier!

I've had the idea to fold the London 2012 logo for the past couple months, and I started working on it over a month ago when I began my summer job. Unfortunately, I didn't have much motivation to work on it seeing as the Olympics aren't for another month; however, this weekend after folding a few more drafts I finally decided that the model was ready. I originally tried to use a windmill base, but I found that I didn't have enough paper to make the sharp corners in the logo. Instead, I ended up "blintz-ing" the windmill base to end up with this crease pattern:


Even with the extra paper to use for colour changes, the 2nd number 2 took several tries to get a decent result. I realized pretty early on that I wouldn't be making an exact replica of the logo, so I decided to focus only on the individual numbers rather than the layout of the entire logo. My result:


The model itself is almost entirely free-folded with little to no references, a technique which always makes replicating the model interesting. Sure, I may be a bit early but this leaves me plenty more time to fold more model (Olympic or otherwise) as I wait for July 27th! I also realized that I didn't post an update on my "origami achievements" (which is mostly for myself to look back at), so hopefully I remember to do that in a couple weeks.

On the Nose

I've been home for the past week for university "reading week" (spring break, whatever else you might call it) and I decided that, of course, I should try to design something. Normally I would think that and not follow up on it, but for some reason one night I had the idea to fold a giraffe from a pentagon. For some reason that struck me as a good use of a pentagon, seeing as one corner could go completely into making the neck while the rest could make the legs and body. The first attempt, as always, was a complete failure and I thought I would probably give up there. Oddly, I kept making one new attempt per day and the models gradually got more giraffe-like as I tried. Finally, the 5th try actually looked right so I went with it. Here is the CP:


It's pretty clear from the CP what each part is, but getting the details might be a bit trickier. The neck can be thinned to half the width and the front legs are made by a rabbit ear. The rest is just a question of closed sinks to thin the body as well as details on the head. The head took me a few drafts to be happy with, but if you look closely you can see that it includes horns and ears.


So why did I title this "On the nose"? I'm writing this post from the airport as I head back to university. I was satisfied with the model as of yesterday, and only folded the final model this morning. In between finishing up assignments and packing, I didn't quite have the time to publish the model but I'm happy that I managed to finish it in time.

Chemistry Meets Origami Again

As some people may be aware and others not so much, I am a full time chemistry student in university at the moment. I've been interested in chemistry for seemingly forever, and I've made a couple models in the past to try to represent concepts in chemistry. However, for the longest time what I really wanted to fold was an organic chemistry model kit. I'd seen one before somewhere (if you find it, feel free to send me the link) but I thought it would be best if I designed my own. I didn't have the idea on my mind for the past couple of months until, taking organic chemistry my professor suggested we go out and buy model kits to help visualize the molecules we were dealing with. It wasn't until two days before my last final exam of the semester (which happened to be my organic chemistry exam) that I came up with an idea that worked.

My main problem when trying to fold a model kit was the tetrahedral shape. I could see how it would be possible to fold a unit from a single square, but not without wasting a lot of paper. Finally, for some reason I had the idea to fold two identical units that could fit together to make the tetrahedron. I tried folding the elbow section so that the slits on the two units would fit together, but that didn't have any way of locking. After playing with that idea, I decided to try something else: using two different units. At first, one unit was just a 90° elbow using reverse folds, and the other flat piece was simply slid into the elbow. That, like before, fell apart easily; however, by changing the elbow to have alternating 22.5° angles, the second unit locked in place nicely. I left the model like that until a couple days ago, when I realized that one of the units was too floppy. I added a sink fold to unit 1 and a crimp to unit 2 so that both units would hold their respective angles equally. The result is a couple of really simple units which can make just about any molecule, such as ethanol:


Or benzene:


The diagrams show how to make and assemble the two tetrahedral units, as well as the hydrogen unit. The tetrahedral angles should be 109.5°, but the diagrams use 90°. This is on purpose because the angles tend to unbend a little. Note that a lot more can be improvised such as double bonds and simply atoms like oxygen and sulfur. I haven't quite figured out how triple bonds or sp³ centres with a lone pair (such as nitrogen) will work, but I'm pretty sure they're both possible.

Click Here for Diagrams.

Normally I wouldn't draw diagrams, especially not for something so simple. For some reason I hope that the model might be useful for someone who, like me, never had a model kit. Unfortunately with things like closed sinks and crimps involved a non-folder might have a bit of trouble, although I would love to be proved wrong.