Submarines work on the principle of the arch: a spherical or cylindrical hull section transfers all the force into compression of the material so there is no net "inwards" force.
The weak points then turn out to be joints, material defects (the famous Titan failure), windows and other piercing points, and any unexpected shear forces.
Don't get hung up on "14 year old". Pay attention to "took up origami 6 years ago". That's 6 years of passionate learning, experimenting and improvement.
You should pay attention to the fact that his parents are rich and educated enough to figure out submarine marketing for him. Winning a major national level science fair plays a pretty big role in college admissions and having the press trumpet his achievements ensures that he will have an easier path to get future internships and other type of prestigious if-you-know-you-know type of positions (who knows, maybe he might apply to YC too in a few years).
Don't get hung up on "14 years old". It's a classic journalist trop designed to get you to read their paper without putting too much weight on the actual content which is a paper thin, pun intended, PR fluff thing for The Society for Science. The prize is not even linked to the origami but on-site team challenges in a final event.
The origami is Miura-ori fold by the way and they are already used in plenty of fields. Fairly interesting stuff from the 60s. Would have made for a great article.
The kids tested some paper configurations and specific fold patterns. Really impressive stuff considering it was totally impossible to do with computer simulation and hasn't been studied to death in aerospace. Neat science fair project, awful headline.
Can't we just accept that some kids do cool stuff that many adults can't even think of? Note that this kid was distinguished in a competition for STEM projects by kids, so he's not unique, but that doesn't reduce the fact that he's uncommon to say the least.
I'm trying to think of what I did when I was 14 that was as cool as that and I can't. I had an imagination and I created stuff all the time, but nothing I'd brag about today. The Space Pistol with Disintegrator Ray was only a prototype that I never managed to really put into production.
I remember cutting an IKEA desk top down one side and discovering the inside was just corrugated cardboard under a few layers of laminate. it was trivial to break by shearing it but in a typical construction where the weight is mostly up/down it was obviously sufficient - until you cut the rigid sides off that is...
While this probably does have incredible Z-axis strength, I can't imagine it being very strong with any kind of lateral loads.
These teen science fair winners almost never amount to anything exceptional, and are a product intense parental supervision. Most universities have wised up.
The key here is scale. What works in inches often falls apart at feet. The structure is holding about 33 psi over the area (which is rigidly supported from below), much more along the contact edges. By comparison balsa wood can support significantly more pressure (varies, but well over 100psi) but doesn’t concentrate pressure on edges.
Is there anything useful about this? Maybe as an inexpensive(?) core for high strength skins?
Does this shape hold up good weight distribution properties when 3D-printed? Maybe this could be huge for 3D-printing mostly hollow, yet strong parts that require in fewer plastic and time spent.
I wish the parents could be given a bit of credit. Instead we pretend the kid was doing this all solo... Its way less impressive when the parents are guiding them.
But the parents are doing lots of unappreciated work here.
This is very cool, but I don't really see the direct connection between a paper structure which is very strong in compression and emergency accommodation (which the article really focuses on).
Tents don't need to be strong in compression - there's no weight on the roof. And obviously paper is not a material that scales up or would be practical for outdoor use.
Just a bit confused by the obvious mismatch here - maybe it's the journalist putting more weight on the disaster application than the kid did.
There's something about this that stands out as very concerning for me.
This, clearly very clever, young man is 14 years old. The article says: "Wu had always been fascinated with the ancient Japanese art of origami, but he really began indulging in it as a hobby about six years ago."
At eight. He was *indulging* in a hobby at eight years old. Indulging in a hobby should be a pre-retirement activity. What an incredible weight the attitude of the writer puts on kids.
I'd be curious what kind of variation there was across his 54 different designs. If he's discovered the existence of a narrow window where strength dramatically increases, that seems a much more interesting find than if this whole family of origami patterns is knowns to perform well and this variant just happened to be slightly better than the rest. It's exciting to think that there may be super strong designs just waiting to be found with a little bit of rigorous refinement.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 60.5 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9WT6TB15yE
Adding 1 to _____ causes a doubling of resistance to pressure, adding 2 is a quadrupling, adding 3 is an octupling, what goes in the blank?
The weak points then turn out to be joints, material defects (the famous Titan failure), windows and other piercing points, and any unexpected shear forces.
The origami is Miura-ori fold by the way and they are already used in plenty of fields. Fairly interesting stuff from the 60s. Would have made for a great article.
The kids tested some paper configurations and specific fold patterns. Really impressive stuff considering it was totally impossible to do with computer simulation and hasn't been studied to death in aerospace. Neat science fair project, awful headline.
I'm trying to think of what I did when I was 14 that was as cool as that and I can't. I had an imagination and I created stuff all the time, but nothing I'd brag about today. The Space Pistol with Disintegrator Ray was only a prototype that I never managed to really put into production.
I think it would be fun to build a playhouse out of it.
While this probably does have incredible Z-axis strength, I can't imagine it being very strong with any kind of lateral loads.
Is there anything useful about this? Maybe as an inexpensive(?) core for high strength skins?
But the parents are doing lots of unappreciated work here.
/parent here
Tents don't need to be strong in compression - there's no weight on the roof. And obviously paper is not a material that scales up or would be practical for outdoor use.
Just a bit confused by the obvious mismatch here - maybe it's the journalist putting more weight on the disaster application than the kid did.
This, clearly very clever, young man is 14 years old. The article says: "Wu had always been fascinated with the ancient Japanese art of origami, but he really began indulging in it as a hobby about six years ago."
At eight. He was *indulging* in a hobby at eight years old. Indulging in a hobby should be a pre-retirement activity. What an incredible weight the attitude of the writer puts on kids.