01: Opening and enclosing – Pyramid Actuator

Following the instruction of MIT’s aeroMorph, I recreated a pyramid actuator with a bending mechanism. From this iteration, I notice that the spacing between the folds affect the angles and where the folds meet.

02 Twisting

In this iteration, I focus on achieving folding motion into two opposite to generate a twisting effect. Following the origami pattern, the air pouch rotates to two direction on the two ends. I apply one set of sealing hinge to the valley fold and another set of discontinued sealing hinge to mountain fold.

03 Paper Crane

Combining the folding techniques, my third iteration is a paper-crane-like module that has each wing folded twice. Familiarizing with the pleating techniques, I come up with the diagrams, in which the blue line indicates the valley crease while the red line indicates the mountain crease.

Heat Sealing Kinetic Inflatables –

The project introduces the folding and pneumatic together as actuator mechanism and inspires me to think about using more techniques such as pleating, crumpling as design tool for form making.