Title: Applications of thick rigid flat-folding origami to practical objects

Authors: Carl A. Nelson

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0526, USA

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.

Keywords: origami; flat-folding origami; rigid origami; thick origami; portable watercraft; portable musical instruments; flat foldability; origami algorithms; Kawasaki's theorem; Maekawa's theorem.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRS.2021.115151

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, 2021 Vol.5 No.1/2, pp.3 - 21

Received: 17 Jul 2020
Accepted: 05 Nov 2020
Published online: 20 May 2021 *

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