Double-pointed VWXYZ squares, a design by me

Ah, so here’s a really old original design that I made in 2013.  The story goes that I have a copy of Meenakshi Mukerji’s Ornamental Origami, which has a chapter on planar models.  These are models where the folded form consists of multiple intersecting planes.  One of my favorite models of all time is Tung Ken Lam’s WXYZ Triangles, which consists of four intersecting triangles.  Later origamists would take this idea even further.  What if you had 5 intersecting planes, or 6 intersecting planes, or more?  So I made a bunch of planar models with different numbers of planes.

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Life Inside, designed by Ekaterina Lukasheva

Ah, here’s a lovely origami model that I have not yet shared.  Not much to say about this one.  It’s a 30-unit model with icosahedral symmetry.  I used 3 distinct colors, and the petals are curled with a toothpick.

Star with Spirals, designed by Meenakshi Mukerji

Meenakshi Mukerji featured some of my origami on her guest gallery page, including this model.  Then I realized I hadn’t posted this one on my blog yet, so here it is.

Regular readers have probably noticed that I feature an awful lot of models designed by Meenakshi Mukerji.  That’s because I have four of her books!  The Star with Spirals is featured on the cover of Origami Inspirations, which I would say is the best of the four.  Although, if you’re reluctant to commit, you might consider one of the Exquisite Origami books, which are cheaper because they’re in grayscale.

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Three-Form, a model designed by me.  Some of the component cubes are taken directly from Meenakshi Mukerji.

I was looking through my photos, and I realized that there are several large models that I never got around to sharing.  This is one of them.  The Three-Form consists of 24 little cubes, assembled into a larger mathematical design.

This one is inspired by General Relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravity.  At the time I was reading Sean Carroll’s textbook on the subject, and I was lamenting how difficult it was to visualize the mathematical concepts therein.

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Announcement: I now have a flickr account for my origami photos!  Now the images are bigger, and you can find them all in one place.  There are also lots of photos that I haven’t (yet) posted on my blogs.

Arrow Illusion, version 2. An original design.  My hand is in the photo to show that this is a real mirror.

Over a year ago, I designed an origami arrow that points in the opposite direction when looked at in a mirror.  I wanted to revisit the design, and make it easier to fold, because this is basically the most popular origami thing I have ever done.  Below, I show detailed diagrams, and a sneak peek behind the curtain. [Read more…]

Toroidal Cube, a design by me

In case it’s not clear what’s going on in the photo, the model is in the shape of a cube, and we are looking at it directly onto one of the vertices.  However, the vertex has been cut out, and there is a triangular hole in its place.  There is also a triangular hole on the opposite end, so that you can see directly through the cube.  The triangles aren’t really triangles, but they look triangular from just the right perspective.

Today’s model was inspired by the regular toroid.  You may have heard of a torus, which is the shape of a donut, or a mug.  A toroidal polyhedron (aka a toroid) is a polyhedron which is also a torus.  A regular toroid is a toroidal polyhedron where each face has the same number of sides, and each vertex connects the same number of edges.

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