The Challenge: Make an origami sculpture using Tomoko Fusé’s text Multidimensional Transoformations Unit Orgiami. (I used instructions on pgs 134, 138-139.)
Materials Needed: Paper (origami paper is handy, but any paper will work) and scissors/paper cutter.
Math Concepts: 3 dimensional building, angles, space filling, rotations, proportions
The Challenge: Fold yourself a 6 piece puzzle that comes together as a 3D star shape. You’ll need 6 pieces of paper.
Materials Needed: 6 square pieces of paper.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, geometry, origami, polygons, polyhedra, vertices.
The Challenge: This is a modular origami (7 squares) spinning top.
Materials needed: 7 squares of paper. Any paper will do, it doesn’t need to be origami paper.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, geometry, origami, polygons, symmetry, vertices/intersections
The Challenge: Fold a Miura fold. This was used on the Japanese “Space Flyer Unit” launched in 1995! (That website also has decent instructions.)
Materials needed: Patience, paper, some sort of pen/flat thing to sharpen creases.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: geometry, origami, symmetry
The Challenge: Make the Origami Firework, but this time, only use ONE PIECE OF PAPER.
Materials Needed: A long piece of paper, patience, and the knowledge that I BELIEVE IN YOU.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, origami, symmetry
The Challenge: Fold an origami cube with windows. Possibly make multiple. (This could be a great collaborative activity for a class!)
Materials needed: 12 pieces of paper, cut to rectangles with a 1:2 ratio.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, geometry, origami, sequences, symmetry, vertices/intersections
(You may have picked up on this, but I tend to do the more involved things on the weekends when I have a bit more time. This one was HONESTLY pretty reasonable until the last step, which took me about 5 finicky minutes to get together. YOU CAN DO THIS. And it is SO SATISFYING when it’s finally together.)
The Challenge: Fold yourself an origami firework.
Materials Needed: 12 congruent paper squares, patience.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, orgiami, symmetry, vertices/intersections
The Challenge: Fold you own octahedron from 6 square pieces of paper.
Materials Needed: 6 square pieces of paper.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, geometric construction, geometry, origami, symmetry, vertices/intersections
The Challenge: Fold 30 identical pieces of paper to put together as an icosahedron.
Materials Needed: 30 square pieces of paper. No problem if it’s not origami paper, you can use regular paper (and you can decorate it if you want!)
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: Geometry, graph theory, origami, polygons, polyhedra, symmetry, vertices/intersections
(Props to Kate Nowak who suggested this.)
The Challenge: Create as many iterations of the Dragon Fractal as you can. See below for my attempts and videos to help.
Material Needed: There are a couple options here:
-Paper and marker (sharpie?). Maybe grid paper, preferably paper that is thin enough to see through (notebook paper is normally thin enough)
-Strips of paper to fold it
-Whiteboard marker and whiteboard/window
-??? I bet you have better ideas than I do.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: fractals, functions, geometry, proportions & ratios, sequences
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