From Robots To Retinas: 9 Amazing Origami Applications

BULL MOOSE, OPUS 413


Robert Lang folded this from one uncut square of Nepalese lokta paper. While origami art has gotten more sophisticated, so has the science and math applications inspired by origami.

Robert Lang


When I told people I was going to a recent conference "about origami," I got some perplexed responses. Origami? Like paper cranes? Well, not exactly. Origami principles are now used in a wide variety of applications--from the design of satellites, to heart stents, to self-assembling robots, and much more.

But what does paper art have to do with these things, you may ask? Indeed, origami has been practiced for centuries and involves folding shapes like birds and boxes out of paper. Japanese origamist Akira Yoshizawa has been credited for helping to popularize it in the 20th century, developing a picture-based set of instructions that served as a universal language, fostering collaborations between artists and scientists.

But since the 1960s, and especially in the last few years, the overlap between origami, mathematics, engineering and other disciplines has grown. As I soon learned at the conference hosted by the University of Illinois, in Champaign, the mathematical processes that underly origami are quite complex, and the same analytical techniques and computer models that allow one to fold a piece of paper into an inordinate variety of shapes can be used to solve a wide array of vexing design problems.

Read More at:
https://www.popsci.com/article/science/robots-retinas-9-amazing-origami-applications

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