Pentagon Origami Tessellation

One upside of having all these meeting at work is I can sometimes fold while sitting and listening. Tessellations are very popular in origami these days, although personally I haven’t done much with them. But I was hanging out with Eric Gjerde in San Francisco few weeks ago, and I got intrigued with a couple ideas. Here is a tessellation I came up with that features all pentagons. It doesn’t use pentagonal symmetry however, the underlying grid is square. It’s an ancient pattern used in Moorish and Mideastern art and architecture. But it’s a cool pattern and I a haven’t seen it folded before so I decided to give it try. I actually just sort of started doodling it in a meeting that was dragging on, and it dragged on long enough that I had a fully folded sheet by the end of it. People really responded to it, so I decided to make a better one out a nicer paper.

Everybody Knows a Turkey

Birds are the new bugs in origami in that making sculptural, realistic birds is trendy these days. Robert Lang has done quite a few, and Seth Friedman’s Blue Bar Pigeon is a recent standout, and other folders as well. So here’s my contribution: a turkey.

I tackled the subject because I’ve not seen an origami turkey out there that I like. I’ve make several prototypes and I’m pretty happy with the outcome. Mine features a detailed head complete with wattle, a nice round plump body, a fan tail, realistic four-toed feet (better to make it stand), and some nice color change effects. The base is unique and interesting. The feet are developed using a method similar to Robert Lang’s Songbird I in Origami Design Secrets, with little bird bases embedded in two corners. The main base is something like a semi-sunken stretched bird base, except that it use 15 degree symmetry instead of the more typical 22.5. The proportion between the feet and the rest of the body is also based on a 15 degree ratio, which provides some nice symmetries.

Unfortunately the design folds beautifully from foil but getting it to look good from regular paper is a bit more difficult. My recent folding style has been trending towards thicker papers, but for this model that kind of thing is completely inappropriate. Too many layers in the legs for one thing. So I’m on the hunt for some good paper to use. I have a couple sheets of origamido paper, but neither is two-colored, and I don’t want to risk wasting it on an experimental design. The way the tail comes out of the body seems to turn out a bit different every time. Plus I’d have to wet fold it, and so I’d have to work that out too. So I ordered some foil-backed washi from Nicholas Terry’s website. It’s 35cm square and brown on one side and gold on the other, so with luck that will be perfect for this model. Check back in a few weeks to see how it turns out.

And while we’re at it, here are a couple pictures of my Eve, to go with Brian Chan’s Wall-E.

E is for Elephant

Since I got back from my trip I’ve been meaning to get another build out on my Foldinator software. It’s very close, I swear. But fate has conspired. My work situation is, um, interesting again. The VP of my new group is leaving the company at the end of the year to start up a startup, which puts my team somewhat out in the woods again. Meanwhile we are aligning like battleships amid icebergs with two other platform projects and one brand business unit to bring a whole slew of web sites online on our technology stack in the new year. Crunch time is coming as we all figure out the missing pieces we need to go live. I’ve been spending most of my work days doing planning lately, and trying to jam in some coding in the spaces between meetings. So it’s been hard to sink my mind into another codebase.

The other thing is I’ve been working on a new origami sculpture which I want to have done by Thanksgiving. I came up with the idea right after I got home from PCOC and have folded a few tests out of foil, to the point where I have it refined enough to give it a go from nice paper. These advanced models take a while to work out.

To take your mind off your troubles, here’s a link to an article about the OUSA Holiday Tree in the American Museum of Natural History, featuring an alphabet of very nice models, including one by yours truly.

Californigami

I just got back from a great trip to San Francisco for the Pacific Coast Origami Conference. It was Jeannie’s idea for me to go, and I must say I was kind of ambivalent about the whole thing until I actually started the journey. But it was great and she deserves a big thanks. The conference went from Friday to Sunday and was a ton of fun. I lived in the Bay Area from the mid-90’s to the early 2000’s, but haven’t been back for a few years, so I also spent an extra day visiting old haunts and catching up with friends.

I must be getting older. Old people are famous for getting up early. It didn’t really bother me to have to get up at 4:30 to get to the airport in time. It felt like getting up for a normal day of work. A few random skipped meals didn’t bother me either, nor did the time zone change or lack of sleep. I cashed out the last of my frequent flier miles from the 90’s when I flew 100,000 miles a year and got an upgrade to business class. It was awesome! The seat was like a living room recliner chair. Since I’m well over 6 feet tall it made a big difference for me being able to nap on the plane.

I was flying alone and wanted everything to fit in my carry on including the models for my exhibit. For my exhibit I made a new batch of models from the designs I know well; sort of a greatest hits collection. These included my Elephant, Moose, Lizard, Turtle, Balloon, UFO, Luv Bug and Loon.

The Pacific Coast Origami Conference (PCOC) is smaller than the New York convention, but a bunch of friends showed up, including some NYC people like Jan and Tony, and the M.I.T. crowd including Brian, Jason, Aviv, Andrea and Tian, who are smart and geeky enough to be fun to hang out with, and others like Eric G, Jared, and Nathan. Brian makes lots of puns and Jason quotes Monty Python enthusiastically and inaccurately and sings contagiously. Andrea has moved to San Mateo and is working for Oracle and Aviv was out there for an interview. Nathan is done college and living in SF working as a school teacher. And so it goes.

I stayed at the hotel where the conference was, which made it pretty convenient. We had some really good Thai food in Japan Town after wandering around in an indecisive group looking for a place Robert Lang recommended, but knew neither the name or location. I bought some really nice origami paper and won a sheet of handmade origamido paper for participating in a folding challenge.

While I was there I folded (among other things) a new original model: an Eve robot to go with Brian’s Wall-E. I taught a class which was a hit. I’m working on a book and brought a whole stack of diagrams, hoping people would fold them and give me feedback. Everyone wanted to fold my Turtle since it was in the model menu, and so I taught that from memory while a few people folded from diagrams on the side.

I’d forgotten what a beautiful city SF is. So mellow and picturesque, especially compared to New York. Saturday morning I took an epic walk. I went from the hotel across town, down the crookedest block of Lombard Street, up to Coit Tower, and then down and around to the waterfront, Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. I had planned on riding the cable car back to the hotel, but when I got there the line was way too long and there was a bad guitarist playing guitar and singing badly to try and get tips from the people in queue. So I walked back up to the hotel.

Monday I rented a car and drove down 280 to Silicon Valley. I had lunch with my friend Wanda in Palo Alto. It was great to see her and catch up. It was a beautiful day and fun to see my old neighborhood. I went for a hike at a place called Windy Hill, which is just up at the top of the hills from there. The ride up is a crazy switchback road thru redwood forests. From the top you can look down and see Stanford, Moffett Field and the whole bay, and even San Francisco off in the distance. Turn around and you see the Pacific Ocean out over the hills to the west.

Ah, my heart is torn in two. I loved living there and love the land and the climate and the culture and people and everything about the place and would love to go back.

In other news, Lizzy got her cast off the day I left. She was born in California and fantasizes about going to college at Stanford as her destiny. I tell her get good grades. She’s with me in pining to move back. I suppose if the right opportunity comes up. But then there’s reality of there here and now.

The last thing the happened at work before I left was that I packed up my office. My whole project moved to a new floor. I flew the red eye overnight Monday and worked at home yesterday, so today I got in to see my new space. It’s much nicer than my old one. It’s a corner office with windows on three walls and a view of Hell’s Kitchen and Times Square. The movers didn’t take my chair (which was a nice one that I brought with me from Nick when I joined the platform group), and my colleagues told me the chairs all were gone and lost. But I went up there and another guy had appropriated it, and gave it back without me having to get too insistent. Another thing, my company just announced extra days off for everyone for the holidays, so it looks like I can take a good long xmas vacation this year.

Coming soon: pictures!

Origami Polyhedra Design

My friend John Montroll has a new book out, called Origami Polyhedra Design. It’s been in the works for quite a while and is a real tour de force. Congratulations John! This is his third book on origami polyhedra, and his first for the publisher A. K. Peters. (They publish a bunch of origami books including Robert’s ODS, and the Proceedings from the 3OSME Conference, which contains a paper by yours truly.) Unlike most origami polyhedra, which are modular, John’s are always from a single square sheet. This a challenging and rigorous style to fold in.

In a change from John’s usual style, this book is much thicker, almost 300 pages, and divided into three major sections. The first is a wealth of theory including general principles, design techniques and consideration, and methods for dividing into nths, for finding angles, folding various polygons, and other related topics. This is really good stuff. The second section of the book is devoted to a variety of models related to the Platonic Solids, including color-change and sunken variations. Totally awesome. The third section is Dipyramid models. This a particular specialty of John’s and there is a great variety of dipyramids with different proportions and number of facets, and a chapter of really cool dimpled (semi-sunken) dipyramids.

All in all the book is really quite amazing, and really takes origami polyhedra design to the next level. And while it is a real Magnum Opus, John has enough unpublished polyhedra to form the basis of anther book, so I hope this one does well and a sequel materializes.

John asked me to fold a few of the models pictured on the cover. I must say it’s very nice looking cover, with the model well arranged and photographed. John’s site is not yet updated to list the new book, and if you go to order it on Amazon there is no cover image yet. So I was taking some pictures of my models for the upcoming PCOC origami convention in San Francisco, and thought I’d share a shot of John’s book while I’m at it. (I know the lizard there doesn’t strictly fit with the theme, but it reminded me of an Escher print and I thought it looked cool.)

Blues Forever

Back in the day my brother Martin decided to teach himself how to play guitar. Once he got the basics together it seemed that almost out of nowhere he started writing a stream of songs, all of them quite good and some of them really powerful and beautiful, and some surprisingly dark. In short order he put together a band named Shade and started gigging out with the material. Sort of an distortion-guitar-driven post-prog pop vibe. I was an instant fan. We even played a few double bills with my band and his.

Shade broke up and Martin went on to commit these songs to tape using a four-track cassette recorder, very advanced technology for the day. He recently digitized the songs and put them online as The Shade Songbook. You can hear the tracks here. The songs hold quite up well and I’m really having a blast listening to them again. (I suppose they could use some modern EQ and tape hiss removal, but Martin made no attempt at such twenty-first century revisionism). Favorites include At The Show, Blues Forever, Just Another Heart Attack, Frozen Ocean, Making Miles … well there are alot of songs. You can get Martin’s take on the project here.

Origami Site Update

I’ve made a number of updates to my Origami Site. I’ve added new photos for my Moose, Elephant, Baluchitherium and Bears. I’ve also added a few new models including my War Elephant, Castle, and accompanying explorations, and added a new section for Origami Architecture. This is a substantial step forward for my origami site. I have a few models still for which I want to fold and photograph an exhibit-quality model, and beyond that breaking the list of models down to be browsable by category and year.

Enjoy!

Megafauna Origami

As mentioned previously I made some megafauna origami models to donate to the American Museum of Natural History for their annual origami holiday tree. I did three models this year: a moose, an elephant and a bear. All three are made out of large paper and therefore quite big. The moose is made from a 32” square of brown parcel wrap, which was the biggest usable piece I could find. I tried making an elephant out of the same stuff, but I had the idea of wrinkling and then flattening the paper first to give it an elephant hide texture. The paper ended up with a slightly strethcy, almost clothlike consistency. The model is just one layer thick over the whole back, so it came out way to floppy. A very interesting failure. I’ll have to keep the technique in mind for the future. I made another elephant out of a 24” square of Canson, which is a thick art paper and very good for making elephants. Lastly I made the bear out of 15” Tant. I’m quite pleased with how all three came out and I hope the museum will use them well.

As an bonus I am including a pic of a funny little are project Lizzy and Michelle undertook not to long ago. They started making origami boats out of Masu boxes, and then put them together on top of corks.

Fall Groove

Well it’s more of the same over here. Nonstop busy. Work work work, making Jack a dull boy. My job situation with the clueless manager seems to have sorted itself out at least. The fall has come. Leaf raking season is upon us, although I expect I’ll still have to mow the lawn one more time. It’s getting darker and colder. We have to turn the heat on every night these days. Starting to get up before the sky is fully light. Ugh. And it’s no longer light or warm enough to go skating in the evening when I get home from work. So I’ve switched to using the Nordic Track indoors, which is not as much fun but I can listen to music while I’m doing it, so it gives me a chance to listen to the mixes from my record. Continuing to chip away at that, thank you very much.

I did some cool origami stuff. I made some “megafauna” models to donate to the American Museum of Natural History for their holiday tree. More on that soon. I’ll take some pictures tomorrow in the daylight. I’ve also started diagramming my Medieval Dragon. It starts with dividing the paper into ninths, which is something I always used to eyeball, but for the diagrams I worked out how to do it the legit mathematical way, which is pretty cool.

Jeannie and celebrated out Crytsal anniversary last week (I looked it up). It was a school night and so we did laundry and helped the kids study. Ah, married life after 15 years. We did meet for lunch in the city and go to a nice Thai place called Yum Yum. Afterwards we went to Toys’R’Us in Times Square and I bought her a lego dwarven catapult.

Denis and Sarah came to visit last weekend. We all had lots of fun. Carrie and Michelle always get on great and little Anna is walking already. Saturday Mary’s all came over and Jeannie’s parents too. Jeannie made a fantastic dinner for sixteen people. Chicken parmesan, eggplant parmesan and pasta. I was surprised to discover we had enough tables and chairs for everyone to eat once.