Bio Blog Books Classroom Appearances Contact R.C. Lewis

origami

My Flavor of Origami

If you’ve read my profile over there on the right, you might have noticed the “origami-folding” part. But when you think of origami, what do you think of?

Paper cranes? I don’t know how to make those.

Or maybe Origami Yoda? I only wish I were that cool.

So what’s up with me saying I’m origami-folding? What can I make?

That’s right! Piles of brightly colored, crinkly parallelograms!

Okay, I’m kidding. I hadn’t assembled them yet. Here’s what they really make.

It’s called a stellated icosahedron. The “stellated” means it’s pointy and star-like. The “icosahedron” means if those pointy parts were flattened down, it’d have twenty faces.

In general, this style is called modular origami. You make a bunch of identical pieces and assemble them. Very geometric.

You can imagine why I like it so much.

It’s also a great way to fill a day of math classes when the timing doesn’t work for a regular math lesson. Like the last day before Christmas break and you just did a chapter or unit test the day before, so you definitely don’t want to start a new chapter.

It also makes the students think their math teacher is pretty cool.

Speak up:

3 comments