Applications of thick rigid flat-folding origami to practical objects
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: This paper presents an approach to rigid flat origami design, with applications including a portable boat and travel-size musical instrument. The conditions for rigid flat folding are summarised, and a set of procedural design guidelines are presented systematically to apply these principles, including a symmetry-based strategy for achieving additional compactness, a corner-fold insertion technique to achieve constraint in the desired shape while preserving mobility for transition to the flat configuration, and a plane-assignment algorithm for the flat configuration. The portable boat is developed from a symmetric, four-vertex origami pattern, and a simplified construction is identified through eliminating the panels which remain adjacent in the open and flat-folded configurations. The musical instrument is a modified box in the shape of an octagonal right prism, and is designed using methods similar to those used in the boat construction. Prototyping methods for both objects, and light testing, are presented.
Author: Carl A. Nelson
Institution: University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Language: English
Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3129061055