Origami Engineering is a burgeoning discipline which favors mechanisms folded from single sheets of paper over more traditional construction methods that involve metal hinges. Working with paper allows designers to quickly prototype and test solutions with affordable materials. Work can be adapted to a variety of different scales. This process has been used to create stents tiny enough to be inserted in a human artery, as well as NASA’s Sun-shield, designed to be deployed in outer space.

As part of an effort to create an engineering course that appeals to a more diverse range of students, and allows for greater creative exploration, I redesigned what was a very traditional course and shifted the focus from fuel cells and vehicles, to biologically inspired design, using origami as the primary formal and mechanical structure. In order to make this feasible in a two week summer program, I worked with “oribotics” expert Matthew Gardiner who customized a version of his origami robotics kit specifically for this course, and developed a curriculum which supports students in experimenting with various origami forms, imagining both artistic and practical applications for these, and refining them through an iterative process.

This new origami-based engineering class spanned the same two-week period as the previous class, yet the work produced was far more advanced. This is the result of a strategic pairing of technical skills, STEM content knowledge, and scaffolded conceptual exploration. In addition, the students this course attracted were more diverse across a variety of metrics.