Out of This World Origami
For ages, my younger sister’s drawings inspired me to do something artsy. However, there is one small problem: I can’t draw, paint, sing, knit, sew, play an instrument… there isn’t one artistic bone in my body.
Instead of having the right brain-dominated mind of artists, writers, and historians, I have the left brain-dominated mind of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. But there is one form of art that involves directions and precision more than any other: origami.
Now that is an art form I could handle. So, I began making origami animals, flowers, stars, and other creations. And, although my origami is limited to an intriguing hobby, this art form is more than just a pastime for one group of fellow left-brainers: engineers. In engineering, origami is an invaluable modeling tool.
Origami enables engineers to create structures that can curve, bend, and stretch to overcome age-old engineering challenges by self-assembling, compacting, and possessing remarkable strength. To make these structures fold and unfold, engineers are experimenting with magneto-active elastomers — magnetic particles embedded in a matrix — that, when a magnetic field is applied, will make the structure compress, stretch, and rotate.
One challenge engineers face with origami structures is finding a suitable material to use. Paper obviously won’t do the job, and to create a functional structure, the material must be a certain thickness, or else it won’t be strong enough. However, this challenge also presents an opportunity: different materials yield different folds, curves, and deformations, which gives origami even greater potential as an engineering tool.
Origami (being the incredible art form that it is) has, of course, thousands of applications: packaging, optics, architecture, telescopes, sporting goods, kayaks, solar arrays, space. You name a field, and origami can have a part in it — if it doesn’t already. Currently, the majority of origami applications and investigations are in space exploration.
“Origami offers the potential to take a very large structure, even a vast structure, and you can get it to fit within the rocket, go up, then deploy back out again. So it greatly magnifies what we are capable of building in space.”
Achieving this is the goal of a NASA project called Starshade. This project hopes to create a baseball-diamond-sized space telescope to fit into a rocket. Once the telescope is opened in space, Starshade will enable scientists to better see planets around brighter stars. For a video showing the unfolding of Starshade, click here.
The creation of the Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robot (PUFFER) is another project exploiting the same potential. PUFFER is a robot that can fold its body to roll under smaller spaces, enabling it to reach areas other larger, unfoldable robots can’t access. This ability enables scientists to investigate uncharted areas and better understand the topography of other planets and our own. For a video showing PUFFER and its abilities, click here.
With its remarkable versatility and functionality, origami has the ability to revolutionize engineering, providing a new method to create structures with unbelievable strength, size, and simplicity. Even though many may see origami as just an art form for those who can’t draw, its potential is truly out of this world.
Works Cited
Lee, Elizabeth. “Ancient Origami Art Becomes Engineers’ Dream in Space.” VOA, 26 Oct. 2017, www.voanews.com/a/ancient-origami-art-bcomes-engineers-dream-space/4086041.html. Accessed 4 Nov. 2018.
Turner, Nicholas. A Review of Origami and its Applications in Mechanical Engineering. U of Notre Dame, 2014. U of Notre Dame College of Engineering, engineering.nd.edu/spotlights/1BusEng1st20004000TurnerApplicationPackageComplete.pdf. Accessed 28 Oct. 2018.
Varrasi, John. “How the Future of Origami Engineering is Unfolding (Op-Ed).” Live Science, Purch, 13 Dec. 2014, www.livescience.com/49121-origami-inspired-engineering-is-expanding.html. Accessed 28 Oct. 2018.
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