Bill Sampson

This is how you could do that.

So does a machine do the folding for you?

Amazing.

How long did it take you?

Oh my gosh.

This software can create a folding pattern for any 3D object, though you still need a lot of skill and patience to fold the structure itself.

Professor Tachi also researches other styles of folding.

Next, he shows me a famous abstract style of origami.

Oh, wow.

OK.

Parallelograms are basically tilted over rectangles.

It's how if you wanted to carry some paper around with you in your pocket and not scrumple it up.

That's the kind of fold you need to do, although I imagine it probably takes a while.

Together, the folded parallelograms make a series of mountains and valleys, which beautifully collapse into each other to make a flat sheet if you apply some force.

A bit of force in the opposite direction and the mountains and valleys return.

That's so clever.

OK, so it's a way of making them compact and able to expand without damaging them.

Is paper often kind of a useful starter or practice material for more complex designs like, say, solar panels, which obviously can't be made out of paper?

Professor Tachi has developed variations on the Miura Ori fold for high-tech applications, which could use all kinds of different materials.

But the simple fact that paper lends itself so well to folding helps make this all possible.