Saturday, January 3, 2009

THE ROUND N ROUND BOX











After inventing the New Year Box I began exploring the twisted look some more. I came up with the Round N Round Box. I had some trouble with the floor and am still working on it.
















I turned the box inside out, and that looked good too. The problem with that model was that what started out as a six-sided box turned into a seven sided one. But the floor worked!












I remade the Round N Round Right-way-out box with seven sides. It went together better. Now it is time to make it out one more time, with a less crumpled look, before graduating to the good paper.










Many of the items which end up on this Blog are made from ordinary copy paper rather than nice paper. The reason for this state of affairs is that this blog is about my adventures in origami design, not in the folding of extant models. Designing generally results in a lot of wasted paper so it makes economic sense to use the cheap stuff to make all the mistakes with.












I was puzzled by the seven sided nature of my Round N Round Inside-out box. At first, I could not see what I had done to turn a 6-sided box into a 7-sided one. I decided it was time to do a little exploring into the realms of angles and their origami approximations. Out came the compass and the graph paper. This was followed by a visit to some web-generated geometry sites where I indulged in lots of semi-educated trial and error investigation until, finally, I "got" it.











I have added a chart to assist those of you who want to make n-walled origami boxes. It details the folding approximations which can be used to create the correct angles from a flat sheet of paper. The chart assumes that your paper has a horizontal crease, which separates the walls from the floor, and a vertical crease, which divides one wall from its contiguous wall. Your job is to create an angle between these walls which will allow the box to have n equal sides in 3 dimensional space. Your aim is to do this without using a compass to measure the correct angle and without covering your paper with a lot of complicated creases which become more inaccurate as they multiply.









While the methods listed in my chart are almost entirely approximations, they are good enough to produce a neat looking n-sided box.

4 comments:

Claudia said...

Hi Rosemary,

Love your blog! I came across a folded box in a gift shop today that I would like to purchase wholesale or replicate. She had two versions, one was gold on the outside about 5" wide by 3" high. The other was silver and about 4" wide by 5" high. The box is one piece, and a circle.

There is a circular crease in the center (forms the bottom of the box), and evenly spaced pleats around the sides. There is one more circular crease about two thirds of the way up, which forms the top edge. When you press all the pleats in towards the center, the circle folds up into a perfect round box, with the pleated edges coming together at the top center and closing the box. I've never seen anything like it and would like to use it for packaging a new product we're developing. Can you help?

Thank you!
Claudia

Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM said...

Claudia,

I suggest you do two things:

1. Ask the gift shop owner where she purchased the box

2. Take a photo of the box (with the retailer's permission, of course) and send me a copy or an URL where I can find it. I will post it on some origami e-Lists and see if anyone recognizes the designer and/or folder.

3. While I can copy most things I see there are issues of copyright and just plain courtesy which would prevent me from reproducing others work for profit. If I have the designer's permission to reproduce it for commercial use that is another matter entirely.

Berry

Anonymous said...

Hi, Berry,

How do you make the round n round box?I'm new to your site and I don't know how to navigate through your pages!

Thank You so much!
Mimi

Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM said...

Mimi,

I haven't posted the crease pattern for this one yet. You can get some idea of it from the assembly photos.

I've been taking a break from the Blog while I complete display models of some of my work, continue writing my origami book and blog elsewhere on different issues. I'll be back soon. I'll make CPs for the Round N Round box a priority.