I just registered www.origamitessellations.com today! I figured that was a good first step to motivate myself to commit some of my material to a more permanent form. I’ve got a few quick pages of writeup that I’m looking to post soon, although formatting is still a bit of a problem. I’m just not great at the whole “graphic designer” role, and usually I’m able to pawn off that sort of work to others. regardless, I’m looking forward to sharing some more in-depth material with you folks out there, and of course I’m hoping to actually get some traffic to the site. I always feel better about sharing materials when I know that people really are looking at it (who doesn’t?) So, make sure you check it in a few weeks or so- https://www.origamitessellations.com. thanks! -Eric

So, after playing around a bit with some “regular tessellations in the Euclidean plane” I thought about making a lamp out of some of them. I found the following photo: I’m thinking of making it out of some dark wood, and filling the center with some sort of appropriately folded translucent design. I received my copy of Make: magazine (volume 2!) in the mail last week, and there was an article about using Minwax wood hardener to turn cardboard into plastic. I’m tempted to use something like this to completely solidify a folded work, so it’s tear resistant/proof and will be easier to manipulate in a lamp setting. if I can pull this off it will be pretty nifty, I think. looking forward to seeing how it works out. nothing wrong with branching out into some creative explorations. of course, let’s hope that the hardening material doesn’t turn the lamp into a firebomb waiting to go off!

hexagonal tiling w/ triangle twists Originally uploaded by Origomi. this makes a nice chain style pattern that’s rather pleasing to look at, and really easy to fold. I’m looking to fold some of this out of translucent paper, turn it into plastic (using a minwax product mentioned in Make: magazine issue 2) and build a lamp out of it. hopefully my dad will help me put together the appropriate wood to make it look nice! look for photos in this space for such an object once it happens… Update: diagrams for this design can be found on my diagrams page.

origami wave 2 Originally uploaded by nolan. I believe this is the origami waves folded by schoolkids for some tsunami relief effort. it’s thomas hull’s model, if I recall correctly. it’s a very nice photo that someone’s taken- when I heard about it I didn’t really think it would look this nice! but it’s very good.

So I’ve been trying to find ways to do some documentation/diagramming of one of my models, to actually get something done. I picked the star twist tessellation, as you can fold a pretty decent one (that’s not really a tessellation, as we’re not repeating it, but let’s not nitpick.) I folded one up, well unfolded one really, and started tracing out all the creases on it. ugh. there’s a lot of silly little folds there! although I think doing this for all my models will probably give me a better sense of how they work, as I have to sit and think about parts of it that I just fold instinctively when I’m creating things. I’d post a shot of the work in progress here, but I haven’t hooked up my scanner in a while so I don’t want to dig it out of the closet at the moment. (yes, I’m just that lazy). and of course I’ll slap it on flickr, just because I really really like putting stuff on flickr. it makes my …