Origami is inspiring a plethora of new engineering designs. Try yourself:
Thanks Audible! Start listening with a 30-day trial and your first audiobook, plus two Audible Originals free when you go to or text veritasium to 500500
Huge thanks to:
Dr. Robert Lang
Prof. Larry Howell /
On first glance it's surprising that origami -- a centuries old art of folding paper to achieve particular aesthetics -- is applicable to engineering. But upon closer consideration there are a lot of reasons methods developed for paper folding are also applicable to engineering: origami allows you to take a flat sheet of material and convert it to almost any shape only by folding. Plus for large flat structures, origami provides a way of shrinking dimensions while ensuring simply deployment - this is particularly useful for solar arrays in space applications. Furthermore, motions designed to take advantage of the flexibility of paper can also be used to form compliant mechanisms for engineering like the kaleidocycle. Since the principles of origami are scalable, mechanisms can also be dramatically miniaturized.
Some of the work shown is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Grant No. EFRI-ODISSEI-1240417. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Bryan Baker, Chris Vargas, Chuck Lauer Vose, DALE HORNE, Donal Botkin, halyoav, James Knight, Jasper Xin, Joar Wandborg, Kevin Beavers, kkm, Leah Howard, Lyvann Ferrusca, Michael Krugman, Noel Braganza, Pindex, Ron Neal, Sam Lutfi, Stan Presolski, Tige Thorman
Edited by
Jonny Hyman, Isaac Frame, and Derek Muller
Music by
Jonny Hyman