I put up a photo gallery on https://www.origamitessellations.com which is located here. It’s about 150 photos of various origami things, most of which I’ve posted to my flickr account and some which I haven’t. I usually end up taking about 20 photos of any given piece, and most of those don’t go onto flickr since there’s such a tight size restriction. This is really a testing page for the gallery, as I’m not terribly enthused about it at the moment. I’ve been using and abusing HTML since about 1993, but it’s never been something I’ve enjoyed a whole lot. I’m looking for a push-button tool that makes things look pretty without a lot of effort! Anyway, lots of origami tessellations and hexagons, triangles, squares, and stars to check out there. I’ve got the first page of my draft document done for a piece on origami tessellations! I’m happy to make some progress.

I just registered www.origamitessellations.com today! I figured that was a good first step to motivate myself to commit some of my material to a more permanent form. I’ve got a few quick pages of writeup that I’m looking to post soon, although formatting is still a bit of a problem. I’m just not great at the whole “graphic designer” role, and usually I’m able to pawn off that sort of work to others. regardless, I’m looking forward to sharing some more in-depth material with you folks out there, and of course I’m hoping to actually get some traffic to the site. I always feel better about sharing materials when I know that people really are looking at it (who doesn’t?) So, make sure you check it in a few weeks or so- https://www.origamitessellations.com. thanks! -Eric

So, after playing around a bit with some “regular tessellations in the Euclidean plane” I thought about making a lamp out of some of them. I found the following photo: I’m thinking of making it out of some dark wood, and filling the center with some sort of appropriately folded translucent design. I received my copy of Make: magazine (volume 2!) in the mail last week, and there was an article about using Minwax wood hardener to turn cardboard into plastic. I’m tempted to use something like this to completely solidify a folded work, so it’s tear resistant/proof and will be easier to manipulate in a lamp setting. if I can pull this off it will be pretty nifty, I think. looking forward to seeing how it works out. nothing wrong with branching out into some creative explorations. of course, let’s hope that the hardening material doesn’t turn the lamp into a firebomb waiting to go off!

hexagonal tiling w/ triangle twists Originally uploaded by Origomi. this makes a nice chain style pattern that’s rather pleasing to look at, and really easy to fold. I’m looking to fold some of this out of translucent paper, turn it into plastic (using a minwax product mentioned in Make: magazine issue 2) and build a lamp out of it. hopefully my dad will help me put together the appropriate wood to make it look nice! look for photos in this space for such an object once it happens… Update: diagrams for this design can be found on my diagrams page.

origami wave 2 Originally uploaded by nolan. I believe this is the origami waves folded by schoolkids for some tsunami relief effort. it’s thomas hull’s model, if I recall correctly. it’s a very nice photo that someone’s taken- when I heard about it I didn’t really think it would look this nice! but it’s very good.