The Origami Forum

I' ve been doing Origami for about three years. I am at least at a high-intermediate level, I have folded a few Joisel models and a Joseph Wu model, his eastern dragon. I have not tried my hand at designing yet, except for a few hardly-worked-on models.

Now I am trying to pioneer a new phase of Origami. I want to use a system of gears, springs, etc. to make animated Origami. My main goal: a flapping, and hopefully flying, Origami crane. the pieces would have to fit inside, but I am somewhat proficient at micro-origami, so hopefully I can downsize most models.

Any help would be appreciated. And I am aware of, and can fold the Spring into Action model. I would also like the model to be as purist as possible, at least without rectangles, glue, or cuts. Thanks in advance.

oi! that sounds like it'll be hard to do. what you could do is make the crane so that, when you throw it, the wings go up. then, there could be some mechanism inside the crane that will pull the wings back down when they go up high enough.

You mean something like this:
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BJ-_eWc4O3c&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed>

It is very funny! But, anyway, it is better to do it by hands, isn't it?

Even more fun to do it with your feet

Ewww! (Although, that's been done for novelty competitions at various origami conferences!)

Yeah like this:

yeah, something like your vid, brimstone, but with the mechanism inside it, gotta try that foot thing

Two people (for example) can fold one model - each can use only one hand - another funny competition.

hahaha I like woman's face on the far right I'm going to have to try foot folding once- just for the heck of it.

Hey guys, my friend just randomly stumbled on this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GNzBFnUAdo

It's a long vid but, load till approx 8:15 and you should pretty much believe she'd fold better than any of us, among other things.