Boing Boing » papercraft

Self-assembling foldable inchworm robots

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:55:02 +0000

Here's a quick and fascinating look at "Robot Self-Assembly by Folding: A Printed Inchworm Robot," presented at the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. The authors demonstrated a foldable inchworm robot that actually folds itself into shape. The goal is to have all the components placed on the robot's shrinky-dink surface using a robotic pick-and-place machine, so that the inchworm robots can be produced, assembled, and set a-inching on their way without human intervention.

The tricky part of the process is the folding of the robot itself: installing the battery and motor is trivial enough for a human to do, which means that a relatively simple pick and place robot should have no problems doing the same thing. This means that these robots have the potential to scale massively: they can be printed out of cheap materials, they fold themselves together, and another robot can plonk some hardware on them and they’re good to go.

This Crawling Inchworm Robot Can Be Printed Out and Folds Itself [Evan Ackerman/IEEE Spectrum]

(via Beyond the Beyond)

Poplocks and Paper Pose-Ables: papercraft joints for pose-able robots

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 01:30:02 +0000

Poplocks are a very clever system for making movable papercraft fastenings with die-cutting and folding. The Paper Pose-Ables site has a bunch of downloadable papercraft toys you can print out and make, as well as pre-cut/scored kits you can buy, for making fabulous poseable robots and other cool figures.

The Pose-Ables people came out to one of my signings last month and gave me a couple of GUPP-E robots, which I've put together this week, with help from my five-year-old daughter Poesy. The robots were fun to put together -- just intricate enough to be challenging without being frustrating -- and the Poplocks system really makes for a great, semi-rigid joint for the toys.

The Poplocks themselves are CC licensed for use in your own models.

The Poplock pushes the two pieces of paper tightly together, creating lots of friction! It can also stay put, and won't pop out on it's own, unless a good amount of force is used to bend it out of place.
Combine the Poplock Wedge with the special Locking Flaps hole, and you will create a nigh-invincible connection. Seriously, you won't be able to get the connection apart with torsion or pulling forces unless you rip or crumple the parts. Even then, the Poplock will probably stay put... holding two mangled pieces of paper together!

Poplocks

Toy "blooming flower" uses nested, dyed fans of tissue paper to surprise, delight

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 16:39:35 +0000

As I get ready to (finally) return home from a month-long tour, I'm taking stock of the gifts I scored for my daughter Poesy on the road. First up is this Toysmith Blooming Flower an incredibly clever little papercraft toy. It consists of a complex of folded and cut tissue paper, sandwiched between two plastic rods. When you open out these rods, the tissue paper fans out to make a lovely paper flower.

But that's just for starters. If you give the flower a shake, it "blooms," as other paper fans, in contrasting colors, emerge from the insides of the first-order flower. Each shake or sharp tap creates a new structure, each more lovely than the last. It's difficult to explain, but itsmecharlee posted the above YouTube video in which a charming little girl masterfully demonstrates.

This is the second time I've brought these home (I discovered them thanks to a tip from Bettina Neuefeind, who sent me to the amazing Black Ink, near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass). The first one lasted for more than a month, which is pretty good for a mess of fragile, glued-together tissue paper in the hands of a then-four-year-old. They're only $4, and the kid is five now, so this time I'm bringing home two. They're really lovely and cool.

Blooming Flower from Toysmith

Space-age bachelor pad poster/papercraft set

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:02:58 +0000

Marshall sez, "This paper scene is a collaboration between illustrator Derek Yaniger and Marshall Alexander. The result is this poster-sized template that you can either hang on the wall or cut to pieces to create the paper scene. We hope to make this template available for purchase soon."

HI-FI GUY (Thanks, Marshall)

Beautiful papercut silhouettes on Etsy

David Pescovitz — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 18:12:25 +0000

Beautiful hand-cut paper silhouettes in the Etsy shop of Ukrainian artists Dmytro and Iuliia. DreamPapercut (via Neatorama)

Horrorgami: papercraft horror film homes

David Pescovitz — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:02:12 +0000

Marc Hagan-Guirey creates magnificent paper craft models of famed horror film houses. He makes his "horrorgami" structures from a single sheet of cut-and-folded paper. Above is the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. Others in the ongoing series include the Amityville Horror house, the Bates Motel, and the Addams Family abode. Hagan-Guirey's Horrorgami is on exhibit at London's Gallery One And A Half through November 14. He discusses the project in the video below.

DIY low-poly mask, now with glowing edges!

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:45:13 +0000

Remember this cool "low poly" papercraft mask by BB reader kongorilla? Check it out, he modified it with glow-in-the-dark tape strips, so it... glows in the dark! Make it yourself.

Make a papercraft skeleton

David Pescovitz — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:02:02 +0000

Over at Digitprop, a free PDF to make this delightful papercraft skeleton.

Low-poly mask, a papercraft mask for Halloween

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:25:29 +0000

"kongrorilla" created this nifty design for a Low-Poly Mask for Halloween 2012. Download it from Thingiverse and make your own.

Here's a blank canvas for the new you. Or your Halloween costume. Or maybe your audition for store mannequin. Or your general purpose anonymity needs.
Sometime in the future I hope to make a full head version, but I wanted to post what I've gotten done so far in case someone could use it for Halloween 2012. The original idea was to make a papercraft alternative for artists who can't afford the "planes of the head" plaster model, so keep your eyes peeled for further developments.
I'm going to make a mask with dark paper, and use glow-in-the-dark tape to highlight the edges - I'll be Wireframe Man!

Hexaflexagons! The miracle of the inside-out hexagon with many, many sides

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 01:21:57 +0000

The incomparably great Vihart continues her Doodling in Math Class video series with a history and demonstration of the miraculous Hexaflexagon, a simple-to-fold paper hexagon that contains several iterations of itself, which can be found by turning it inside-out over and over again. Sure to delight, inform, entertain, and mystify!

Historical Note: This video is based on a true story. Arthur H. Stone really did invent the hexaflexagon after playing with the paper strips he'd cut off his too-wide British paper, and really did start a flexagon committee (which we'll hear more about in the next video). The details and dialogue, however, are my own invention.

Hexaflexagons (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Origami TIE Fighter

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 15:34:14 +0000

Martin "starwarigami" Hunt made this lovely TIE Fighter origami piece for London's MCM Comic Expo and contributed it to the Boing Boing Flickr Pool, along with several other marvellous creations. The photo notes state: "Folded from a 2 by 1 rectangle cut from a sheet of 150gsm A1 craft paper. For a B.O.S. display at the 2012 MCM Expo in London."

TIE Fighter

Origami hats for world leaders, folded from the currency of their respective nations

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:43:20 +0000

Hasegawa Yosuke creates origami hats for presidents, dictators, and monarchs from the currency of the nations they led. via MyModernMet.

Great historical disasters in papercraft form

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:15:35 +0000

Here's a series of "Disaster Dioramas" (dioramae?) -- papercraft models of historic disasters to download and print. Included in the set are the Titanic, the Hindenberg, Sir Shackleton's Endurance, Apollo 13, the Boston Molasses Disaster and the Chicago Fire, pictured here.

Spitefuls: [Disaster Dioramas!] (via Making Light)

HOWTO make a papercraft Enigma machine

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 03:00:35 +0000

Franklin Heath, a UK security consultancy, offers plans for printing and assembling your own papercraft Enigma machine, approximately like the ones that Alan Turing and the Polish cryptographers and co broke at Bletchley Park. Now all we need are papercraft bombes, and a papercraft Collosus, and several thousand papercraft young women to work on code intercepts through the night...

The instructions note: "Using low-tack 'removable' sticky tape can make it easier to swap round and reuse the rotors if you want to do that, but it's not essential."

If you seriously want to explore paper computing, a good followup project is the legendary CARDiac computer.

Enigma/Paper Enigma

Kids picture book combines story with origami lessons, signing tomorrow in Toronto

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:42:25 +0000

The Brothers Leung are a creative family in Toronto, who've just launched a kids' picture book called The Pirate Girl's Treasure, which combines storytelling and origami:

In this spectacularly original picture book, the story mirrors an origami activity: As a pig-tailed pirate girl travels through mountains, valleys, a cave and finally by sea to reach the treasure her grandfather has hidden for her, imaginative illustrations show different incarnations of a single folded sheet of paper within the scenes. Best of all, clear instructions at the end will let readers recreate the story with just a few folds and tears, transforming a piece of notebook paper into a mountain, hat, cave, boat and really cool pirate shirt.

The Leungs are holding a signing and launch tomorrow, Saturday the 14th, at Toronto's Little Island Comics (742 Bathurst St.) 12-3pm.

The Pirate Girl's Treasure (Thanks, Mom!)

Prolific Instructables maker creates robotic claw business cards, spaghetti yetis, and more

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:58:23 +0000

Instructables user PenfoldPlant creates fascinating projects! I love the robotic-claw business card (video above), but I'm also extremely partial to the Spaghetti Yeti (right), and who could say no to a giant papercraft Trojan Horse (below)?.

PenfoldPlant

Papercraft, steampunk Iron Horse

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:10:07 +0000

This steampunk, papercraft wonderment comes from Phillip Valdez, who notes, "I do paper sculpture and have a soft spot for steampunk. All creations are made from Archival paper with book binding glue and acrylic paints."

Be the first in your city to own a mechanical wonder “The Iron Horse”. (Thanks, Phillip!)

HOWTO make a working, lockable papercraft safe

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:18:27 +0000

JD sez, "This site provides complete plans for printing and assembling a single drawer safe protected by a three digit combination lock."

Paper Safe : Come and get it! (Thanks, JD!)

Papercraft, wall-hung 3D space invader sprites

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:54:21 +0000

Jeff sez, "We like to be prepared for an alien invasion...Nerf guns loaded, extra rations of nachos packed away, and a Klingon dictionary in the back pocket. Unfortunately, such preparations tend to be forgotten in the routine of day-to-day life. As a subtle reminder, we created giant, 3-D, papercraft Space Invaders on our walls, and just so everyone is prepared, we show you how to build your own. Enjoy."

Build 3-D Papercraft Space Invaders (Thanks, Jeff!)

Soft robots: elastomeric origami

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:09:33 +0000

Wired Science's Dave Mosher investigates elastomeric soft robots -- air-powered origami creepers that can go places that challenge their rigid metallic kin.

Getting the soft robots to perform a particular action is a feat of origami: Folded in just the right way and glued in the right spots, for example, the researchers showed how a crinkled clump of silicone-soaked paper lifted a 2-pound weight. The force of the air required to drive it was roughly twice that of a human exhalation.
The team has also cylinders that blow into spheres, tubes that act like springs and compact stacks that turn into rigid rings or pipes.

Avi Solomon notes the similarity between these eerie things and the robots in Ted Chiang's brilliant science fiction story Exhalation.

Origami Robots Run Only on Air

Shu Sugamata's origami spaceships

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:30:47 +0000

Avi sez, "Shu Sugamata has been making origami spaceships since 1977 and has amassed quite a body of gorgeous work."

ORIGAMI SPACESHIPS (Thanks, Avi!)

Papercraft Viewmaster and Etch-a-Sketch

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:11:13 +0000

Marshall Alexander made these free downloadable papercraft Etch-a-Sketch and Viewmaster models. He notes, "Instead of creating exact paper replica's I chose to do very simple interpretations that fit on a single page and are very easy to construct."

Bright Red 1 and 2

They Might Be Giants construct enormous papercraft monster-truck hearse. Jonathan Coulton implicated.

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:07:04 +0000

In this video announcing They Might Be Giants' next tour, the lads construct a gigantic pink monster truck hearse. And sing a fine song!

They Might Be Giants are going on tour across the United States starting January 27th in Santa Cruz. Jonathan Coulton opens. Full ticket info below! The song is When Will You Die? from TMBGs album Join Us, and this video was created by The Offices of Paul Sahre.

Here's instructions for making your own pink monster-truck papercraft hearse.

When Will You Die? - They Might Be Giants (US tour announcement video)

Anatomically correct papercraft torso with organs

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:05:35 +0000

Horst Kiechle made this astounding card-stock human torso, stuffed with anatomically correct paper organs. Its for the Science Lab of the International School Nadi, Fiji Islands. Man, what I'd give for a set of plans for this!

paper torso (via Colossal)

Papercraft Paris

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:30:40 +0000

This tiny, adorable papercraft Paris playset is a free download. Good fun for a weekend's pretend voyage -- spice up your romantic life by bringing your loved one a Continental breakfast in bed with a miniature Paris on the tray, and deliver it wearing a beret and nothing else. Or use 'em to decorate the kids' French toast.*

It's a positive externality of Paper City Paris, an ambitious larger project from Made By Joel.

Travel Size Paper City Paris! | Made by Joel (via Super Punch)

* Whatever floats your boat. To paraphrase Frank Zappa, "Hey, it's the 21st century, anything you can do to have a good time let's get on with, as long as it doesn't cause a murder."

Laser-cut papercraft niftiness from the geared fidget-ring guy

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:11:52 +0000

Last weekend at New York Comic-Con, I had the pleasure of meeting Glen from Kinekt, who made the geared fidget rings we featured back in 2010 (one of my favorite gadgets of all time!). Glen's been doing lots of clever stuff lately, including a series of laser-cut papercraft gizmos you can buy from his Etsy store, a papercraft PC with working mechanisms, and the crazy tank-tread coffee table shown below.

Beautiful short film about decomposition of a whale carcass

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:08:21 +0000

When an animal as big as a whale dies, its body becomes a whole new ecosystem. One whale carcass can support other forms of life for 50-to-75 years—basically as long as the whale itself lived.

This gorgeous video (I am not kidding. You will not need a unicorn chaser.) illustrates how that cycle works, using paper cutouts and simple puppetry. It's mesmerizing and enlightening.

The video was made for a Radiolab episode about whale falls, and was put together by Sharon Shattuck and Flora Lichtman. Amazing work!

Video Link

Thanks to Ferris Jabr

Fractal Menger sponge made from Post-Its

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:32:32 +0000

Nicholas Rougeux made this fabulous Menger sponge fractal out of mini Post-its, which he swears by for erecting fractals:

Each Post-It was torn into 16 equal squares, then folded into units and assembled into the sponge.
Post-its offer surprisingly structural durability and are easy to get in large quantities making them ideal for assembling structures like these.

(via Kottke)

Mini Post-It sponge [flickr.com]

HOWTO rubberize origami

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:55:38 +0000

Instructables user Blightdesign has developed a method for rubberizing paper origami creations by dipping them in Plastidip, using them for Christmas tree ornaments. This HOWTO explains how to rubberize your own paper toys.

(via Make)

Rubber Origami [instructables.com]

Papercraft 1:1 model of a 1969 Mustang, accurate to the smallest component

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:59:38 +0000

Artist Jonathan Brand is working his way through a papercraft 1:1 model of a 1969 Mustang coupe, beginning with the engine, and (eventually), making his way through the rest of it. It's fabulous all in one piece, as shown here, but even more impressive considered as a series of components, each tiny piece carefully handmade and assembled in gleeful, obsessive detail.

This is a project that I'm currently working on. When finished every part of the 1969 Mustang coupe that i restored and sold to purchase a diamond engagement ring will be recreated out of paper in 1:1 scale.
This is a continuation of the diamond series and an earlier show titled "one for another." It is made entirely of archival inkjet prints on paper. The process began with creating a 3D computer replica which is then unfolded flat and printed on an inkjet printer. Each piece is then cut out and glued together to form a 3D replica of the original.

motor (paper car), 2011 (via Oh Gizmo)