Apish

Every year, there is a design challenge at the OUSA annual convention. This year, the subject is nonhuman great apes, so everyone is busy folding gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos. I originally wanted to fold a bonobo because of there unique look, and almost achieved folding one. However, I ended up folding a gorilla instead. The base is quite nice and can be folded out of this CP: I'm quite happy with how the gorilla ended up seeing as it was meant to be a completely different ape. The collapsed based already looks apish, and could probably be used to make a chimp or bonobo. To make a gorilla, you just need to move the legs so that they're facing down, and then shape the face and body and add details such as hands and feet. Here is what you can end up with:

Aromatic ⌬⏣

Benzene is a pretty important compound in the study of organic chemistry, but you shouldn't drink it. However, you can fold it if you like, which is exactly what I did. I wanted to fold some more chemistry related origami, so I decided to try benzene. I started off by making a hexagon and making a hexagon twist in the center to make the circle that represents the modern delocalized view that we have thanks to Kathleen Lonsdale. Here is what I ended up with:


No CP, because the explanation is all that you should need. It was free-folded anyway, so theres no real measurements.
Next, I decided to try the older structure of benzene with alternating double and triple bonds. This was Kekulé's structure, and is still commonly used for many drawings of compounds. On the BKChem program on my computer, this is the structure used when drawing an aromatic compound. I folded 3 sets of pleats from the center and then folded at the edge in those three spots to make a line. This might be a little harder to understand, but the picture should help.


Hopefully I'll be able to use these to make other origami structures in the future.

All Wet

I've wanted to fold a molecule for quite some time because I love chemistry so much. At first, I was thinking of folding something like Asprin or methane, but decided on something much simpler to start with: water. Its not often you see water as the subject for a model. I have seen it as a background and many things that come from and live in water.
Here is the CP that I used. It is fairly simple to fold, but don't get the order of the folds mixed up.


To start off, you have to fold the model in half horizontally and then fold up two corners for color changes. After that you can make the other folds to get to the base. The details are quite simple because you just have to round the "spheres" until you get something like the common Van der Waals spheres models of water. Here is what I mean:

Too slow

Just yesterday, I figured out that this months challenge on the french forum is Windmill base models. I started folding something right away. At first, I was trying to get a bird of some sort, and then I was just doodling. Eventually, I ended up with a bird that has no name other than "Bird". Because the final CP isn't really based on the windmill base, I've decided that it can't be part of the challenge (deadlines are a bit less important on the french forum). Here is the CP that I ended up with:


You can see that there is quite a bit to the model. The middle of the model is crimped at 45° angles and the bottom section forms the feet and tail. The top is the two wings and the head. After folding the base, you can do a lot with the head, such as make it into a beak or funny crest. It may take a while to fold from the CP, but hopefully it is still possible!