Mathing…

Origami Chopstick Rest (PICTURES)
Origami Chopstick Rest: UPDATE 1 (DIAGRAM)
Origami Chopstick Rest: UPDATE 2 (VIDEO)

Finally found time to put the origami chopstick rest video I made a few months ago online.

It’s an excuse for me to spend some time learning how to put a video together using freely available tools and music.

There are probably other (perhaps better) ways to do this, but this is how I did it:

• Video was recorded using my Droid.
• The video used a 3GP file format which I then converted using handbrake to .mkv (MPEG-4).
• The music was downloaded in mp3 format from ccmixter.org.
• The video and music were imported to Windows Movie Maker.
• I added some text to the video and published it to WMV format.
• I then uploaded the video file to youtube and added the description.
• Finally, I copied the EMBED code and put it here in this post.

This one took me a while to get done. I think I can see myself becoming more comfortable making these videos. I wonder how I’d grade my own video using rubrics. It was not as easy as I had expected.

Music: “Test Drive” by Zapac found on ccmixter.org

Origami Chopstick Rest (PICTURES)
Origami Chopstick Rest: UPDATE 1 (DIAGRAM)
Origami Chopstick Rest: UPDATE 2 (VIDEO)

Here’s the update to Origami Chopstick Rest that I mentioned earlier (click on the link to get to the pics).

I tried following some of the tips on (PDF) Origami Diagramming Conventions: A Historical Perspective by Robert Lang.

This is what I have so far.

One problem I’m having is how to diagram the last step where I create a saddle like shape from the straight edge.

It is not the standard straight line fold. A quick search and image search for origami, origami notation, origami diagram didn’t yield what I was looking for; most examples were of straight line folds.

Any origamist or origami diagramist (is that a word?) know how to show that in a diagram?

Origami Chopstick Rest (PICTURES)
Origami Chopstick Rest: UPDATE 1 (DIAGRAM)
Origami Chopstick Rest: UPDATE 2 (VIDEO)

Have you ever touched the table surfaces at your local Chinese restaurant? There’s a reason why they invented the chopstick rest.

You don’t have to buy one can carry it around with you. Next time you’re waiting the 10-20 minutes for your food, take your paper chopstick wrapper and make an origami chopstick rest.

Here’s a sample:

Many chopstick wrappers are open on one end. However, some wrappers may cover the chopsticks completely.

It may be necessary to rip open one of the ends. You can tear it off completely. I choose to leave it on (no bits of paper to throw away).

Fold the wrapper in half.

Fold it again in half.

This next step is optional. I re-fold so that there’s no hanging torn bits on the outside.

Fold in half along the length.

Fold triangularly along one of the corners.

Do the same for all 4 corners.

Fold them together and you get.

At this point you can stop. You’ve just created a simple chopstick rest that’s fairly functional. The first time you try this you may find the food arriving on your table when you finish. As you become more adept and folding them, you may want to modify this base to create fancier and in some cases more functional chopstick rest. I’ll give an example below.

You may notice that the above chopstick rest may rock back and forth. The middle support section is a little longer than the sides. One way to fix this is to fold the middle support section.

Do it again for the other side and you have a more stable chopstick rest.

One last thing about this rest is that it is straight along its length and the chopstick may slide off the sides. To avoid this, we can create a saddle, a slight curvature down the middle like the real chopstick rests.

Here’s the final rest in action:

I’ll probably update it later with instructions in traditional origami notation.

UPDATE: Using a CC-Attribution chopstick rest image.
UPDATE2: Added links to the other updates.