Like Riding a Bicycle

After a four- or five-year hiatus where his hobby time has been focused elsewhere, Daniel has made his way back to origami. 

(Daniel's comments: “This is my most recent little project. It's folded from 6 rectangles: three 1x2, two 1x4, and one 1x6. All of which were glued together around a piece of wire to help it hold its shape. “)

I think it’s fair to say that his skill has not diminished in the interim. 

It's Not Just For Kids

Earlier this month we went to an origami exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art. It included a bit of the history of origami but was manly focused on the technological uses of origami. Since that is exactly what Daniel wants to do when he grows up, he was thrilled about the whole thing. Even for those of us who are not obsessed with origami, it was a pretty cool exhibit. While we were there, we overheard a professor tell a class that Robert Lang would be giving a lecture at the museum. For those of you not in the know, Robert Lang is a world renowned origami artist and physicist. That combination may seem strange, but there are actually a lot of mathematicians, engineers, etc. who are into origami. Daniel knows very well who he is so attending a lecture given by Robert Lang was an exciting thought. Kevin took Daniel down to the lecture last night and so Daniel is going to be my guest blogger and tell you all about it.

Last night, dad and I went down to BYU to hear a lecture given by Dr. Robert Lang. For those who don’t know who this is (probably everybody, because he is an origami person, and I’m the only one really in depth into origami in our family), Robert Lang is a mechanical engineer that uses origami to engineer things. He was down at BYU to go along with the origami exhibition down there. He is an amazing artist. To support that claim, here are some things he has folded. He designed each one.
 

Anyway, he lectured at BYU and I went. It was great! He talked about the origins of origami. He talk about how a man named Akira Yoshizowa made and revolutionized origami and made room for more complex models. He then went and talked about the math in origami. He talked about how at any point in the middle of the square, the angles all add up to 360 degrees. The crease pattern also has to have two colorability. This crease pattern is for the two praying mantis model, called Snack Time. 

      

He also talked about the Bug Wars. This was an origami conflict that was all bug one-up-man-ship. An example would be, “My spider has 8 legs.” “Well, my dragonfly has six legs and four wings, and that is 10.” “Well, my beetle has 6 legs and 2 antenna and each leg has 2 claws, which equals 14.” And so on, and so on. It got to the point where it was long, skinny legs. “My praying mantis has longer legs than your stag beetle.” “Well, my model has twice as many long and skinny legs.” It just kept going. Dr. Lang then talked about how to do really complex models in three “easy” phases; 1. Pre crease 2. Collapse 3. Shape. I got a verbal shout out when he talked about phase 1, “And this young man has been doing this since he got here.” I had brought along a crease pattern that I was folding. It was the crease pattern to the Imperial Shuttle from Star Wars. After the lecture, I went up and met him. He talked with me for a minute about my origami skills, and I got a picture with him. I had a great time! With what I learned at the lecture, I have been able to make my folding skills better. I hope to be able to make some of the models shown above in the future. 

Apparently I’m Not the Only One Who Thinks It’s Cool

Just in case you didn’t know, Daniel is really into origami. And he’s really good at it. We’re not just talking paper cranes here. We’re talking about teaching himself all kinds of designs that he’s found in books and on the internet and then using what he’s learned to create his own designs, things like a variety of different ships from Star Wars. He’s been doing origami for about three years now and he’s looking at intermediate origami designs in the rearview mirror.

About a year ago he found instructions for a dragon designed by Satoshi Kamiya, one of the world’s most advanced origami masters. It was one of Kamiya’s less complex designs, nevertheless it is pretty complicated. There were 24 pages of instructions. Daniel made multiple attempts to make the dragon but was never successful not only because it is complicated, but because he did not have paper that worked well. He needed bigger pieces for the more intricate designs and since this is Utah, the biggest origami paper I can find is 8 inches. So he tried some other kinds of paper and just could not make it work.

A few months ago my parents began serving a mission working at the Distribution Center. That is where the church prints all its materials and there are frequently rolls of the paper that the magazines are printed on that are either rejected for some reason or are far enough gone that they can’t be used anymore. They are up for grabs so my dad started bringing some home and offered one to us. I took it knowing that my kids would love to have big paper to draw on. But it wasn’t long before Daniel discovered that the paper was well suited to origami. It had enough body to hold a crease but was thin enough that it didn’t get too bulky with multiple folds.

So he gave the dragon another try and succeeded. He used a 1 yard square piece of paper with no cuts in it. He entered the dragon into the art show at his middle school and won a first place ribbon, one of a number of first place winners. Yesterday, at the end of the art show, he was awarded the one and only people’s choice award. He was super excited and I must admit that I was a little bit proud. He told me that as he was carrying the dragon towards home he had lots of kids holler, “I voted for you!” I think it was a big self-esteem booster.

So prepare to be amazed by Daniel’s origami awesomeness:












 
Last night he completed a phoenix, also designed by Kamiya.


 
Now he is wishing he could afford the book of Kamiya’s designs, but the thing is $150 used on amazon and $75 plus shipping on the other sites we’ve found…

All The Kids In His Class Want One!

For the last four or five months, Daniel has been really into origami.  I'm not sure why it appeals to him so much, but he really enjoys it and any unused little scraps of paper lying around the house are destined to be folded and creased into something magnificent.  He checks origami books out from the library on the regular basis and some books and paper donated to him from his Aunt Connie have definitely been put to good use.  He has an entire basketful of origami creations to prove it.

Today he brought this itty bitty dragon home from school:

I was astonished.  Apparently all the kids in his class want a dragon.  And since his teacher assures me that he only does things like this when his work is done, I figure it's all good.