Miura Fold Lantern

This project had heavy influence and had its foundation from the book “Structural Packaging: Design Your Own Boxes and 3D Forms” by Paul Jackson.I knew from the beginning I wanted to prototype my designs, and not wanting to waste class supplies I noted how the author said that “All the examples photographed for the book were made with 250gsm card.” Knowing this, I chose 300gsm as it was the closest to 250gsm as I could get. A lot of the examples of how the form should be folded and made reminded me of when I created paper crafts resembling Minecraft cubes. So I imagined cube shapes by visualizing a Minecraft texture and its 2D representation. What felt the most remarkable and the one I drew the most inspiration from was Example 6.2.17, with 6.2.6 as a close second. I found them the most inspiring because of how complex the structure was for something that was made of paper. It reminded me immediately of origami and made me want so badly to incorporate origami into my project.

I started this project knowing that I wanted to incorporate origami into the goal of this project which was to create a closed shape. I started by searching for collapsible origami folds which led me to a video by NeoSpica Paper Sculptures titled “Collapsible Paper Column Helix Decagon“, from there I learned about a lot of different folds but settled on the Miura Fold, as I previously learned about it in a mathematical origami class. I knew that using origami would make it so I couldn't understand the height or dimension of the final product as it could dynamically change so I opted for a physical prototype rather than create a drawn prototype. However I did make a sketch of what I thought the project would look like in my head. So I go to Fusion and then Illustrator to export cuts into a Cricut die-cutting machine so I could start prototyping the fold. The Miura fold is pretty simple as it is a parallelogram mirrored and then translated to the bottom of the previous, creating an arrow-like shape. After four different Miura folds to determine the size of the folds, I settled on a Miura fold constructed of parallelograms with a 30-degree angle with a length of 30mm and a width of 27mm. The problem I ran into next was that patterns were not enough to make a complete cylinder. After emailing my professor, Frost, they recommended another art piece by the same artist called “Folded Miura-ori Ball With Displacement“. With this video and the other references they provided, I understood that what I needed to do was make the pattern bigger. However, the pattern was so big that I either had to make the folds smaller or use more cardstock. I settled on using more cardstock and used four sheets of cardstock, gluing the edges and then folding them to create the cylinder. With my prototype finished and with the reminder that this is a Fusion360 and laser cut project, I remade my design in Fusion and laser-cut the design for a cleaner look.

300g/110lb letter-sized cardstock

die cutter / scissors / lasercutter

metal ruler

Glue

When I first started designing this project I made it in Fusion360, however I switched into illustrator due to it being more familar. Once I finished the prototype and redesigned it in Fusion I realized the mistake I made which was treating Fusion as Illustrator rather than its own seperate entity. This can be seen from the way I originally designed the project in Fusion. What I did instead the second time was just make outline of the shape in sketch and then use illustrator to add the crease lines. I parameterized the everything from the height, to the width, and the angle. This made it so that it would stay the right shape even after moving and copying it around. I then extruded it to 3mm. Then I went to illustrator, using the outline I was able to quickly create the lines where the creases of the form would be. This is shown with red being the lines that are cut and the green being the lines that are scored.

Cricut / Die-cutter

Using Cricut Design Space I uploaded the outline of the pattern onto the die cutter and cut the pattern onto four different sheets of cardstock. With the cardstock being 300g I set the die cutter to Fabric+, causing the die-cutter to make a deeper cut and to make two passes through the cardstock. As other settings like Cardstock+ would be unable to consistently cut through the cardstock. From there I measured a strraight line at each straight crease at 2.7cm. This gave me an idea of where the crease would be. I then creased the paper using my metal ruler creating straight edges for the valley and mountain folds to form.

Laser-Cutter

Using the laser cutter required less involvement as with the illustrator file it would create precise cuts and would score the paper, with red being cut lines and green being the score lines. Cuts would be done using the 15 power and 90% speed on the laser cutter but the laser cutter would be set at 5% power and 100% speed for the scoring. However as I was limited to one letter sized cardstock I had to downscale the svg to fit the cardstock.

Cricut / Die-cutter

To attach the pieces together I used hot glue at the intersection of the valley and mountain folds. Two pieces of the patterns. Two of the pieces of the pattern would be attached and overlapped at the y-axis, lets refer to them as y_piece and the other two would be attached and overlapped at the edge of the x-axis of y_piece. From there it would look like a larger version of the Miura fold. I would then attach the ends (not overlapped / in the valley and mountain folds) of the large pattern at the y-axis to create a cylinder with a star shaped opening. At the end put in a small LED candlelight to make it into a lantern

Laser Cutter

To attached the pieces I again used hot glue. However this time since the piece was all together I simply attached the ends to create a cylinder with a star shaped opening. As it is only using one cardstock the final result was much smaller (see small blue)

I felt the final outcome achieved what I wanted and even more. The fold lines and glue lines are practically invisible and the way that line is able to shine through was the exact diffusion that I wanted. If I had more time I would try to experiment with more complex folds or make the parallelograms smaller then they are to create a more interesting pattern or emerge a different a shape. I wish from the beginning I looked at Fusion360 as I look at TinkerCad rather than Illustrator as it would have saved a lot of time from parameterization alone. The shape that I came that emerged from the pattern is modern and something I imagine would come from "Westworld". What would be great is if the next iteration was collapsible and interactive. If I were to make major changes I would make it so it could collapse into something flat and for its lights to be controlled by when it is in its collapsed and lantern form.