News: Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curve-Crease Sculptures of Erik Demaine

Erik Demaine is a Professor of Electronic Engineering and Comp Sci at MI, but he is also an origami folder who has had work displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. He makes some beautiful models and intricate puzzles, but in my opinion the really inspirational work is the curved creased models. 

In Erik's own words describing the above models: "Each piece in this series connects together multiple circular pieces of paper (between two and three full circles) to make a large circular ramp of total turning angle much larger than 360° (between 720° and 1080°). Each sculpture is also turned a different amount before joining the sliced circles into one big (topological) circle."

These pieces are strange and beautiful, but they are also quite reproducible. I will see if I can put together a "how to" for a simple variation. Below are a few images of my easy efforts—I seem to have lost the better ones.

H also makes amazingly complex and organic looking models like the following:

• Three Waves Meeting

• His set of models, Pushing Curves to the Limit

• In Circling the Square, you can see how a non-creased piece of paper behaves and follows the curvature.

I hope you have a chance to visit Erik's website. Have a go at recreating some of his works, or maybe even make some new versions of your own.