Origami MEMS
Derosh George and Marc J. Madou
1 Introduction
Origami, an ancient Japanese art of folding a single uncut paper to form complex
shapes, dates back to the sixth century A. D. It was not very popular back in those
days due to the high price of paper. Nevertheless, the art sustained through the
generations as a Japanese tradition. There are also some evidences that similar art
forms existed in Europe as early as the eighth century. It is not clear, however, if
origami in Europe was independently developed or originated also in Japan and found
its way to Europe via the famous silk road. One of the first written instructions for
origami is found in Akisato Rito’s 1797 book called “Sembazuru Orikata” (meaning
“thousand crane folding”). Although the Origami artwork was practiced in various
parts of the world, it was not until the twentieth century, during Akira Yoshizawa’s
time, that this art form became globalized. Yoshizawa published a system of patterns
and developed a variant of origami called wet origami. Wet origami uses a dampened
paper instead of a dry sheet of paper to construct more accurate non-geometric
origami rather than through mere folding (Fig. 1). In another variation, creation of
more complex shapes were made possible through the simultaneous use of multiple
sheets of papers in a technique known as modular origami [165]. Later, Demaine and
Tachi developed an algorithm to make almost any conceivable polyhedron shapes
from a sheet of paper through just folding (Fig. 1) [29, 165]. Collectively, traditional
origami, wet origami, and modular origami can transform simple two-dimensional
shapes into three-dimensional shapes of different degrees of complexities [126].
Such origami techniques, from an engineer’s perspective, offer some key advantages
D. George · M. J. Madou (B)
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697,
USA
e-mail: mmadou@uci.edu
D. George
e-mail: deroshg@uci.edu
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
U. S. Dixit and S. K. Dwivedy (eds.), Mechanical Sciences,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5712-5_9
197
Derosh George and Marc J. Madou
1 Introduction
Origami, an ancient Japanese art of folding a single uncut paper to form complex
shapes, dates back to the sixth century A. D. It was not very popular back in those
days due to the high price of paper. Nevertheless, the art sustained through the
generations as a Japanese tradition. There are also some evidences that similar art
forms existed in Europe as early as the eighth century. It is not clear, however, if
origami in Europe was independently developed or originated also in Japan and found
its way to Europe via the famous silk road. One of the first written instructions for
origami is found in Akisato Rito’s 1797 book called “Sembazuru Orikata” (meaning
“thousand crane folding”). Although the Origami artwork was practiced in various
parts of the world, it was not until the twentieth century, during Akira Yoshizawa’s
time, that this art form became globalized. Yoshizawa published a system of patterns
and developed a variant of origami called wet origami. Wet origami uses a dampened
paper instead of a dry sheet of paper to construct more accurate non-geometric
origami rather than through mere folding (Fig. 1). In another variation, creation of
more complex shapes were made possible through the simultaneous use of multiple
sheets of papers in a technique known as modular origami [165]. Later, Demaine and
Tachi developed an algorithm to make almost any conceivable polyhedron shapes
from a sheet of paper through just folding (Fig. 1) [29, 165]. Collectively, traditional
origami, wet origami, and modular origami can transform simple two-dimensional
shapes into three-dimensional shapes of different degrees of complexities [126].
Such origami techniques, from an engineer’s perspective, offer some key advantages
D. George · M. J. Madou (B)
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697,
USA
e-mail: mmadou@uci.edu
D. George
e-mail: deroshg@uci.edu
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
U. S. Dixit and S. K. Dwivedy (eds.), Mechanical Sciences,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5712-5_9
197