Thinking/Creating with Active Materials

Paper forms

Paper is a low cost and mechanically flexible substrate for printed electronics; there are already commercial paper products being produced specifically for printed electronics and regular paper can be used for DIY electronics as seen with bare conductive. Paper has the fantastic quality of being either durable or disposable and transient depending on its application.…

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Tesalation

Paper is a low cost and mechanically flexible substrate for printed electronics; there are already commercial paper products being produced specifically for printed electronics and regular paper can be used for DIY electronics as seen with bare conductive. Paper has the fantastic quality of being either durable or disposable and transient depending on its application. By creasing and folding paper we can transform it from flexible a plane into a rigid or even elastic structure offering endless potential for forming these electronic devices.

triangle-process

Folding complex paper structures can be extremely time consuming and unforgiving to mistakes. For this reason designing original structures in a computational/parametric environment such as Grasshopper is appealing, however those attempting this can be quickly overwhelmed by physics involved. This simple routine with grasshopper ovoids any complexity by connecting the faces in a geometric tessellation with a simple bridging fold. Any number of two-dimensional tessellations can be transformed into a three-dimensional structure using this method. After folding the structures from paper, they first appear flat and bit lifeless at first, but with simple manipulation they take on a unique parabolic forms.