Nick Robinson's Blog, page 25

New book – Intriguing Origami

I’m working with a company called Snake(!) to produce a collection of twenty Robinson designs. This will be the first commercial project to solely feature my own designs, although the “Origami Bible” came close. All designs are previously unpublished, some stretching back 20 odd years and the book will include videos of every design. Here are some of the examples I’ve made for the photographer. The book is tentatively called “Intriguing Origami” and will be initially published in Italian and French.

half-hexagon reptile

Here’s a design that didn’t make the cut for Amazing Geometric Ori, but I like the simplicity and solidity of the unit. I’ve not been a big proponent of multi-piece origami over the years, but it has a lot to offer, as can be seen from the wonderful work of Francisco Javier Caboblanco.

Models (always) wanted

I’m just starting on a new book project and require 30 models. I’m keen to use unpublished models if I can, but sometimes it’s hard to keep an eye on the best new work out there. If you have a model you feel deserves some publicity, please send me diagrams (ideally pdf) for consideration. Touch wood, there will be more books to come, so your work has a decent chance of being used at some point!

Thanks…

The Leg end of Xanadu, banger-stylee

Most of the time, the students in my origami class are required to suffer my endless wit & wisdom and to struggle with my teaching but this week we actually had fun, making bangers from A3 paper, then firing them off in time to “The legend of Xanadu”, that classic from Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich.

Thanks to Yaz for the footage!

OUSA special session

Kathy Stevick kindly sought permission and taught my rhombic unit at a special session for OUSA. Here’s a photo of student Clara with the result, the model is on the right.

Generally, I don’t require people to ask for permission to teach any of my designs, but it’s nice when they do ;)

Video killed the origami star ;)

I’ve just added a few more videos that I found on youtub to my collection – a happy hours viewing for all ;)

New book – Business Card Origami

My latest book will be out soon, called Business Card Origami. It features a variety of models designed using the US business card format.

 

1200 penguins (and a life-sized polar bear) at Phaeno

I had a superb weekend in Germany at the Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg. The idea we came up with was to have visitors fold as many penguins as they could, to form a display on some polystyrene ice floes. Meanwhile, I made a near life-size polar bear, aided by my assistant, the lovely Nora. We had some paper left over, so I created a baby bear, then a sea lion to keep it company.

Having made large models before, I remembered to bring my knee pads – you can’t imagine how painful it is on the knees after a very short time! The fold took around 3 hours, with plenty of breaks for hot chocolate.

Origami Deutschland, in the form of Heiko Ahrens, helped run folding classes at tables around the exhibit, which had a giant folding polyhedron (I have a toy version of this) that expanded and contracted above it.

The Phaeno is an extraordinary building, made from vast slabs of concrete at strange angles, built next to the Volkswagen factory. It contains a huge number of science displays, presenting some fascinating scientific phenomena such as shadows, echo, inertia, robots, geometry, stroboscopics, illusions, fire tornados and much much more. I’ve certainly never seen a place like it and the thousands of visitors were clearly fascinated. There was even an origami section!

My visit was organised by the brilliant Dominic Essings, who ensured everything went smoothly and didn’t falter when I asked for all kinds of tools to help create a stand for the bear. Most of the time was spent in the centre, due to the minus 5 degree temperature, but I did find time to check out the local weissbier. The late night flight was delayed by nearly 80 minutes, meaning I arrived back home as 2.40am, but it was an amazing weekend, one I will remember for a long time.

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Popular Science ;)

I’m working on a book of flying models made from business cards and mon ami Michel Grand (Michel, ma belle) is sending me all kinds of useful and interesting ideas. Here’s an image he found in a 1943 copy of Popular Science. We’ve tried to replicate this beautifully simple design using cards (and without cuts), but the weight of the cards rapidly becomes a problem, the model falls to the floor too quickly to start spinning. We’ll see if a solution materialises!