14-year-old Miles Wu folded origami pattern that holds 10k times its own weight

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-14-year-old-is-using-origami-to-design-emergency-shelters-that-are-sturdy-cost-efficient-and-easy-to-deploy-180988179/

by bookofjoe • 5 months ago

928 196 5 months ago

smithsonianmag.com

gnabgib• 5 months ago

Small discussion 3 months ago (43 points, 9 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46106871

dang• 5 months ago

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

14yo won $25k for origami that holds 10k times its weight - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46106871 - Dec 2025 (9 comments)

amelius2• 5 months ago

Where can we read about the other submissions?

bookofjoe3• 5 months ago

The top 30 finalists are listed here:

https://www.societyforscience.org/jic/2025-project-showcase/

nuclearnicer• 5 months ago

It looks like the top 10% from 6th to 8th grade Society of Science fairs are invited to participate. They are then selected down to a top 300[1] and a top 30.[2] You can find a project name for the top 300 and a paragraph on each of the top 30.

[1] https://www.societyforscience.org/jic/2025-top-300-junior-in... [2] https://www.societyforscience.org/jic/2025-finalists/

pants2• 5 months ago

Fun when these things hold a surprising amount of weight. Reminds me when these two engineers on Lego Masters made a bridge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9WT6TB15yE

sysworld• 5 months ago

wtf, why lego, whhhy? "The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

edit: What, they geoblocked a ~1min clip, wow.

bookofjoe3• 5 months ago

I live in the U.S.: I can watch it.

What is "your country?"

layer82• 5 months ago

This is from a Fox TV series, probably distribution rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Masters_(American_TV_seri...

ck2• 5 months ago

Could concept be applied to submarine vehicles to exponential increase their resistance to pressure at depth?

codeddesign• 5 months ago

This is weight distribution on a flat plain. Think of Roman Arches. On a curved plain, weight distribution of THIS origami falls apart as pressure is added horizontally (not just vertically).

efreak2• 5 months ago

I've made similar tessellations before, they can be curved. You can trivially make a pre-folded tessellation into a cylinder of arbitrary diameter; to curve it like a submarine, you'd just adjust the angle of the creases. Optimize the curve so the pressure is always perpendicular and there's no problem here.

The real issue here is that there's not much point in it, as the very thing that makes this useful (the ability to fold it up) would also make it collapse easily in a pressurized environment. You'd also have to deal with preventing leaks if you wanted air inside, likely by adding an outer hull, which would then defeat the purpose.

layer82• 5 months ago

Unfortunately it stops working when the paper gets wet. ;)

Dylan16807• 5 months ago

Exponential in relation to what other value?

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?

pjc50• 5 months ago

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.

givemeethekeys• 5 months ago

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.

uoaei2• 5 months ago

Also don't get hung up on "folded". He hasn't innovated a design (it was invented by a Japanese astrophysicist, Miura-Ori), merely measured sustainable load across different designs.

nine_k2• 5 months ago

"Miura" is the name of the astrophysicist. "Ori" (折り) just means "fold", as in "origami" = "fold+paper".

adfm2• 5 months ago

Don't get hug up on "invented". Ruth Asawa registered for (1956) and received US patent 185,504 on June 16, 1959 at the suggestion of her professor, Buckminster Fuller.

https://theartian.com/ruth-asawa-patent-collaboration/

ForHackernews• 5 months ago

He literally did fold all the folds himself. He didn't even get an LLM to reskin VS Code for him and apply to Y Combinator.

avadodin2• 5 months ago

Being able to hold 10x the weight of paper doesn't sound so impressive that it would require an astrophysicist to invent it.

I was more ready to accept the headline if it had been invented by the kid.

Are you telling me you can't roll up 10 origami papers and stand them on a reasonably stable origami pattern?

croisillon• 5 months ago

i hear he didn't even produce the paper himself

nerdsniper2• 5 months ago

Also, ‘years’ tend to be a lot more hours for kids, and each hour yields more learning due to neuroplasticity. I learned so much faster at 15 than I do at 35. I know more now, which often more than makes up for slower learning, but I can’t learn difficult novel subjects in depth as fast as I once did.

I’m glad I learned OS in depth during high school via Gentoo linux. And engineering/physics/math in college. It’s very easy to assimilate any new knowledge which can be understood through those areas of first principles.

But learning more advanced math is quite a task now.

sigmoid105• 5 months ago

Can you really say that unless you switched fields multiple times? Of course you'll pick up on math and physics faster in high school than in college or postgrad, but that's because the problems get way, way harder as you progress. I've found that even in my late 30s I can still easily pick up new skills outside my field of expertise as long as I start with the basics that could also be picked up by a high-schooler. I started learning a new language last year and thanks to modern study apps, I actually find it easier today. Of course it will still take a long time to become an expert, but I'm not sure it would need more total hours than if I had started 20 years ago. It just gets more difficult to allocate the necessary hours for learning.

6r17• 5 months ago

I don't know - i'm 33 ~ now - recently with AI learning is much easier - don't get me wrong I definitely won't say that the brain does not slow down - but I'd definitely argue that we have advantages over kids - be it discipline, knowing how to learn ; and stuff like that - for example let's take coq which is I suppose one of the hardest thing we can learn - you can decompose it in ways myself as a kid or as a 20yo wouldn't even be able to. What I mean is that there is a lot of complexities or stuff i would get stuck upon that I just fly over today and know I'm alright - much better ability to focus in a sense

globalnode• 5 months ago

I'm learning better now the older I get. More good'erer.

avhception• 5 months ago

Gentoo is what really made Linux click for me, too. I'm still very, very glad for that and remain a loyal user to this day!

Although I've had to restrict it to the 2 desktop machines. Maybe I should give it a shot again on the laptops, now that binary packages are universally available...

dlahoda• 5 months ago

I had to learn and relearn a lot at 30-31. It was good. But it was not good at 27 for example. Learning new is habit. Hard to start, bur goes fast.

Etheryte• 5 months ago

As far as I'm aware, this is not true at all. Adults actually learn considerably faster per hour spent, it's simply that most adults don't have as much time to dedicate to learning as kids do. This is confirmed both by studies as well as intuition — you get better at most things as you do more of it, studying is the same.

SwtCyber5• 5 months ago

I've noticed that learning something like advanced math as an adult feels slower, but the understanding tends to be more intentional

jordanb• 5 months ago

I've never understood this belief. There are many things I struggled with as a child that are very easy for me to understand now. For instance, calculus. I struggled barely passing my classes originally. A few years ago I decided that I really needed to know calculus so I bought a book and worked through all the problems. Not only was it not difficult but the whole thing just made logical sense; it was all straightforward.

I can believe there are some things that would take me longer as an adult to learn than if I were a child (a new language for instance) but origami folding wouldn't be one of them.

something765478• 5 months ago

and each hour yields more learning due to neuroplasticity

I don't think that's true. As an extreme example, it takes a newborn a couple of years before they can start speaking a language; an adult can learn a few basic phrases in an hour or so.

_joel2• 5 months ago

I'm sure nothing of significance was happening about 6 years ago that allowed for more free time either... :)

ear7h• 5 months ago

I wonder what was happening 6 years ago that gave him a chance to develop and explore the hobby.

Onavo• 5 months ago

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).

the_arun2• 5 months ago

To be fair, how many kids of rich parents spend time in doing experiments similar to this? Reading the article, I think he is naturally talented & motivated (& not targeting college admissions).

kortex• 5 months ago

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 origami folds once, but I fear the man who has practiced one fold 10,000 times

BobbyTables2• 5 months ago

People do tend to be pretty good at things they been doing for almost half their life!

StopDisinfo910• 5 months ago

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.

jb1991• 5 months ago

it was totally impossible to do with computer simulation and hasn't been studied to death in aerospace

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm.

InfinityByTen• 5 months ago

I was actually wondering why haven't the computational geometry and shape optimization people found these structures so far. I would expect us to at least know these shapes or category of shapes.

Getting it via origami is art and a testimony to wonders of intuition and observational learning, but getting the shapes could be done by other methods.

petterroea• 5 months ago

As a kid you are plenty more free time as well. This boy has GRINDED origami. Very impressive.

SwtCyber5• 5 months ago

The age makes for a catchy headline, but the real signal is the time investment and sustained curiosity

YeGoblynQueenne• 5 months ago

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.

PunchyHamster• 5 months ago

Triangles together strong!

Aardwolf2• 5 months ago

Surprisingly it's not hexagons, because hexagons are supposed to be the bestagons!

MagicMoonlight• 5 months ago

So what is the ideal pattern and how can you build a shelter with it?

I think it would be fun to build a playhouse out of it.

nine_k2• 5 months ago

I think that design has the easiest application in something like corrugated cardboard, as the middle layer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miura_fold

tgtweak• 5 months ago

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.

jnellis• 5 months ago

That the construction method of most hollow-core doors in your house.

lm284692• 5 months ago

This design is terrible for desks, they all end up sagging after a few years of use. Their "SANDSBERG" kitchen table is a much better choice for a desk, no cardboard and metal reinforced

voxelghost• 5 months ago

Yes especially in hot humid climates where they sag already after a year if you are keeping a Monitor and some books on it.

hiAndrewQuinn• 5 months ago

I don't think I have ever lived in a place where I've kept a desk, or any other furniture, long enough to care, though.

dyauspitr• 5 months ago

It’s cardboard covered with a thin layer of plastic and wood. People buying this aren’t doing it for longevity. It’s so they can spend $15 on a side table for their college dorm.

oasisbob• 5 months ago

I've had a ton of fun using these lightweight desks as makeshift porta-ledges while climbing.

Biggest downside is their lack of moisture resistance.

interloxia• 5 months ago

Would vacuum bagging help?

SwtCyber5• 5 months ago

IKEA moment is a perfect real-world demo of how much the outer geometry and boundary conditions matter

SilentM68• 5 months ago

Smart teen :)

Aeroi• 5 months ago

what if, instead you just placed whatever weight you wanted onto a flat unfolded piece of paper.

xqcgrek2• 5 months ago

These teen science fair winners almost never amount to anything exceptional, and are a product intense parental supervision. Most universities have wised up.

nephihaha2• 5 months ago

Sometimes, but I do find his story inspiring. He has taken an age old craft and demonstrated it may have practical applications. I hope he can patent some design based off this and then he can make some money off it. (Yes, I know he didn't invent this particular fold.)

palata5• 5 months ago

Yes, I know he didn't invent this particular fold

So how could he patent it?

I join the parent: it's a kid who empirically evaluated how much weight an existing fold can hold. It's not like he solved a hundred years old mathematical problem.

hooloovoo_zoo• 5 months ago

Looks kinda like an egg carton to me. So if an empty egg carton weighs 50g, that's like saying you could stack 500kg on top. Pretty impressive.

mlhpdx• 5 months ago

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?

JumpCrisscross2• 5 months ago

The key here is scale. What works in inches often falls apart at feet

Does that mean we could increase the orders of magnitude if we made it smaller? Lots of tiny stuff needs mechanical support. And lots of folded small things agglomerated is another way to say biology.

Terr_• 5 months ago

Closer to "mineralogy", plenty of things are both smaller and tougher (on this "support its own weight" metric) than cells or proteins with their squishy folding rules.

Even if we include things like hydroxyapatite in teeth, or even lignin, those are more like byproducts of biology than active biology itself.

energy123• 5 months ago

Yes, the math is probably somewhat similar to what carpenters use to determine if a tabletop will sag as a function of its length: https://woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/

Obviously not the same because the force isn't being applied perpendicular to the edges, but still, almost certainly will be not nearly linear.

refulgentis• 5 months ago

Is there anything useful about this?

Directly: no, the end of the article has a nice list of reasons why, somewhat hidden

(ex. "Actual shelters...need to respond to multidirectional loads" = these were tested with load in one direction)

Miles, if you're reading this, it's useful. You're already doing what .1% of people do. I call them journeys and emphasize they're a million steps without clear direction, and if you're lucky, maybe positive feedback along the way. You're just on step N < 1,000,000. This works out, in some way, you already know it's not literally "yes this is sooo useful that we should start autofolding it at 1000x scale". It will work out. maybe as exactly this, this with some tweaks, or the $25K helps you do $X, or the publicity helps you do $Y.

WaitWaitWha• 5 months ago

Improved cardboard shipping boxes.

If I can make the shipping boxes less fragile with same amount of paper as current cardboard box designs, it is a win.

the_arun2• 5 months ago

Note that boxes may get pressure from all the sides(different kind of pressure & movements during shipping), not just from the top as seen in the images (or shelters) in the article.

devsda• 5 months ago

May be we'll get something like cardboard egg cartons which are designed for vertical loads but for other types of goods.

jasondigitized• 5 months ago

Yes, a young scientist gaining momentum.

IshKebab• 5 months ago

Ugh, emergency shelter? We already have 50 million emergency shelter designs. It's ok to say this has no practical uses but is very cool.

nephihaha2• 5 months ago

It can hold a considerable amount of weight then that may have application for areas where sand, snow or even rocks may be a problem

palata5• 5 months ago

It's ok to say this has no practical uses but is very cool.

Agreed. But it doesn't go viral as much. Every cool robotics research goes with a comment that says "it could be useful for disaster response in a post-apocalyptic world where the conditions have changed in such a way that only my robot can save us".

maxbond• 5 months ago

It's a science fair project. It's part of the rubric. More broadly it's a scène à faire (an obligatory genre trope) for academic writing.

moomoo11• 5 months ago

what a smart kid! wishing him all the best

dietr1ch2• 5 months ago

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.

sen• 5 months ago

That’s already a thing. Infill. There’s lots of variations of infill that all have different strengths and weaknesses.

emporas• 5 months ago

There is also 3d printing origami shapes [1]. But 3D printing is still plastic(usually).

The idea of origami steel sheets has stuck on my mind ever since I found out about laser welding. Cutting thin 2mm sheets of steel, stitching them back together in different shapes, and holding tons of weight? That sounds very compelling to me.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNVBK7-h9Fs

punnerud• 5 months ago

That’s like saying origami is already a thing. Agree that this could be cool to test as new kind of infill.

regularfry• 5 months ago

So initially my thought was "why would this be better than existing infill patterns" but my second thought was that the reason Miura-ori patterns are interesting in the first place is because they fold. Not in this application so much, but in general, the way they flex is why they're interesting. The upshot here is that if you embedded that sort of pattern in a closed box, the degrees of freedom would try to transfer the force of a vertical load on the top to a horizontal stress in the outer shell of the base, in both x and y. A bit like a spherical dome.

I'm not sure that it's better than a dome; it might be for cases where you can't predict where on the top surface the load is going to be? I'm also not sure that a sheet of printed infill is sufficiently similar in its physical properties to a sheet of paper/card for this to transfer well, but it would be an interesting experiment to do.

PlatoIsADisease• 5 months ago

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.

/parent here

palata5• 5 months ago

Agreed, but then it makes the whole thing a lot less impressive and it doesn't get viral.

Parents or a teacher most likely guided this kid to empirically measure how much weight a known origami fold can hold. I mean I remember that we were guided to do similar experiments at school when I was the same age... I don't remember making the news for "14-year olds empirically confirm Newton's law" :-).

calf• 5 months ago

It's individualist exceptionalism taken to modern extremes. I remember having these sorts of science assignment in middle school, one with dried pasta with textbooks, and another with dropping egg safely in a box. Invariably the winners won (me and my partner) because our dads had "advice" when we got home and they saw what we were playing with. Winning in my experience was the most corrosive part of those experiences because I literally did not come up with the solution.

danparsonson• 5 months ago

I don't know, personally I think it's a bit weird for any mentor to expect recognition for their mentee's success. Surely the success itself is the reward? Pay it forward and all that. I would hope any parent would be adult enough not to feel like their child was stealing the spotlight from them.

albumen• 5 months ago

You could look at this in at least two different ways. 1) journalism, and how it’s a better story if the kid is a self-contained genius; or 2) having youth be thankful for mentoring, and to understand little in life is achieved without others’ assistance.

I don’t consider that the parent comment is seeking to “steal the spotlight”; just that it’d be a more realistic appraisal of how success is achieved.

stevage2• 5 months ago

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.

s0rce• 5 months ago

Most tents are in fact not very strong in compression unless designed for snow. If you do get a big snow you need to wake up in the night and remove the snow so it doesn't crush the tent.

_joel2• 5 months ago

I thought it was about the compressability of the material to save space, perhaps?

SwtCyber5• 5 months ago

I suspect the connection isn't "paper roof holding weight" so much as "geometry that can turn thin sheet material into a stiff, self-supporting form"

solatic• 5 months ago

tents don't need to be strong in compression - there's no weight on the roof

But there is on the floor, unless you expect the inhabitants to sleep more or less directly on the ground, including themselves, whatever is used as a mattress, belongings, small appliances, etc. Emergency habitation is not the same as a camping tent, it needs to be able to service populations that have difficulty with camping's limitations, like the elderly.

Paper is not a material that scales up

Citation needed? It's made from a renewable resource (wood) and there's some 400+ million metric tons of paper production yearly (source: Gemini, so feel free to take with a grain of salt).

Or would be practical for outdoor use

If exposed directly to the elements, sure. But what if the paper is laminated or otherwise enclosed within plastic, rubber, or other synthetic material well-recognized as hydrophobic?

stevage2• 5 months ago

> Paper is not a material that scales up
Citation needed? It's made from a renewable resource (wood) and there's some 400+ million metric tons of paper production yearly (source: Gemini, so feel free to take with a grain of salt).

Sorry, I meant in the sense of physical scale - I wouldn't imagine the properties of paper at 50cm scale translate directly to say 5 or 10 metre scale.

bpicolo• 5 months ago

The ground can already support the weight. Anything whatsoever in between the ground and the occupants is sufficient if your goal is to separate their feet from it.

It's made from a renewable resource (wood) and there's some 400+ million metric tons of paper production yearly

They don’t mean production volume, they mean physically. You can’t increase the thickness of paper by 1000x to just make thicker, stronger, paper. It’s a different material entirely.

jmcgough• 5 months ago

This is a problem with our science funding system. We really discourage pure research, so everything needs to be justified in terms of saving lives or helping to cure cancer. He'll make a good academic someday.

noisy_boy• 5 months ago

We never know when the result of pure research will have applications. Maybe his findings would have material impact 20 years from now in a field we are unable to foresee today.

1-6• 5 months ago

100% this. There's nothing wrong with focusing on first principles and this is a rediscovery in that matter.

It's just an acknowledgement that the Miura pattern works and this kid kept his focus. To be perfectly honest, he just took something that was already done before (the fold) and applied it. Scientists do this all the time and win prizes--like cellophane tape to create graphene.

ktoo_4• 5 months ago

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.

thunky3• 5 months ago

Indulging in a hobby should be a pre-retirement activity

I don't think indulge means what you think it means.

ktoo_4• 5 months ago

I apologise for you misunderstanding my example as a strict definition?

For anyone who hasn't understood my meaning:

Indulge is a word that implies that you're allowing yourself something that you might not ordinarily. The point being: it is (or should be) silly to suggest that a child can be said to indulge in a hobby. This is because the further implication is that an eight year old might show some restraint and focus on their book learning and networking.

Nemo_bis• 5 months ago

Even worse was the passage: "First, Wu needs to consider thicker origami solutions as he scales his design up".

Needs to? When did he sign up for it? It's not like he tried to patent a shelter design or bid for a government contract.

bux93• 5 months ago

I've heard/read the expression "to indulge in a hobby" many times and never thought it was pejorative or paints hobbies as extravagancies. If you google indulge hobby, there's plenty of hits. Strangely though, ChatGPT says it does sound negative. It had never occurred to me, and probably not to the author.

crazygringo• 5 months ago

Same with me. It's just an expression. One definition of "indulge" is "to take unrestrained pleasure in" (MW). I just read it as an activity the kid really really enjoys.

lobsterthief• 5 months ago

Just because ChatGPT says it sounds negative doesn’t mean it is. I didn’t think of it negatively either.

Who knows how ChatGPT made that suggestion [this time around]. Maybe 30% of the English-speaking population thinks it’s negative, or 60%, or perhaps someone simply wrote a high-profile negative op-ed that included the phrase in its title.

Anyways, not that you did this, but we need to be careful not to use LLMs as the deciding factor in how to feel about things. :) It gives too much power in swaying our thought to those who build the models.

jjk166• 5 months ago

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.

MengerSponge• 5 months ago

It's a well understood shape, but we're happy to see a teenager playing and learning.

It has a particularly cool region in its configuration space where it can be bistable: https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.93.03...

thenthenthen• 5 months ago

Whats unique or special about these particular tessellations? My students have been making similar ones for 10 years (and googled them)

csa• 5 months ago

Whats unique or special about these particular tessellations?

1. He talked about them to people who were interested in listening.

2. He was able to apply the knowledge he gained for his specific task in a variety of team tasks at the event.

wileydragonfly• 5 months ago

Pretty cool, good for him. My Thermo Fisher bottle opener is a prized possession. Much like those cancer center ash trays.

Razengan• 5 months ago

Doesn't everyone else roll paper receipts etc. by the corner into a long stick? As a kid I sometimes licked the trailing corner to make it stick even better. I was and am always intrigued by how it becomes so much stronger and stiffer than the original flat sheet, but I never scienced too much into it :)

pcurve• 5 months ago

Our future is bright. This made me smile more than most news I've read in recent months.

AxiomLab• 5 months ago

It’s amazing how emergent structural properties can come from simple, deterministic folding rules.

In algorithmic design, we often struggle to balance form and physical function. But rigid foldability proves that finding the exact right geometric constraint actually creates the function. Respect to the 14-year-old.

SwtCyber5• 5 months ago

Pretty impressive work for 14 and more importantly, a great example of curiosity turning into real engineering thinking

amelius2• 5 months ago

Proves that a child can be perfectly happy without having access to social media. Just give them a sheet of paper.

metalman• 5 months ago

I propose a moment of silence, for what if all the hype here proves to be half true, is the last time in history that there will be anything like a youth bieng able to achive a simple cognitive performance that distinguises them from a dollar store calculator.

aquir• 5 months ago

Imagine 3D printing this from titanium...how much weight could that hold? Amazing achievement!

democracy• 5 months ago

I hope the smart boys keeps engineering mind growing and gets a good degree and keeps contributing to the better good! Good luck to him!

titaniumrain• 5 months ago

no one will say he is a chines descendant this time as origami is not AI, not military, not bats!

Aardwolf2• 5 months ago

How impressive holding 10k times ones weight is, depends on size right? E.g. an ant can hold 50 times its weight, but a 10x10x10 times upscaled ant would not be able to do that

The size and 10k amount here are impressive compared to the ant nonetheless

seyz• 5 months ago

No phd, no funding committee, no peer review anxiety. Just curoisity and paper. Sometimes the breakthrough comes from not knowing the problem was supposed to be difficult. This is what happens when you don't tell a kid something is too hard

vatsachak• 5 months ago

Holy shit there is so much cope in this thread. Give the boy his props

mattfrommars2• 5 months ago

As a grown adult in this mid 30s, I wonder when the transition happens in kids who are passionate about certain subject or career turn into becoming lawyers or accountants in adulthood… it’s like encounters in life changes people to pursue a career which they never imagined they’d do in their childhood

You won’t find a kid who’d say, “I want to be accountant when I grow up…” instead you’d find people want to be pilots or police officer….

C6JEsQeQa5fCjE• 5 months ago

I wonder when the transition happens in kids who are passionate about certain subject or career turn into becoming lawyers or accountants in adulthood…
You won’t find a kid who’d say, “I want to be accountant when I grow up…”

When they realize that people with more money and more connections to powerful people get their way over people with less money and fewer connections to powerful people. The children of the former group also get a significantly better starting position in life compared to the children of the latter group. That is, if the latter manage to attract a suitable mate as poor people. If you choose dreams over money, you're not only failing your own potential desires and ambitions that will then probably never materialize, but also your future family and offspring. As the wealth inequality gap widens ever more, such pressures only intensify, and everything turns more and more into shit. Those kids' (from your post) desire to live a life with a fulfilling career is sacrificed at the altar to the dragons hoarding more and more wealth at all costs (billionaires).

mattfrommars2• 5 months ago

Agreed. You succinctly put my thoughts into words which I couldn’t quite describe.

I truely wish this kid continues to pursue his passion and not get side tracked with grim realities of the real world.

watersb• 5 months ago

A couple of years ago, National Geographic magazine had a feature on the use of origami in engineering and art; the print edition featured a striking cover photograph of a gold colored sunshade for a space telescope under test at JPL.

The web site is aggressively paywalled, to such a degree that I cannot determine the date of publication.

But they had a public access podcast and transcript here

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/podcasts/article/unfoldin...

kccqzy• 5 months ago

This brings back lots of memories. When I was in high school, there was a project to build a paper bridge that can hold weight. The class was split into teams of four. Our team was the team that had the most reproducible results, because I was very much hung up on documenting the various folds we had experimented with. I probably spent more time using a computer to draw the lines that would aid the fold than actually thinking about the folds. In hindsight I think that event actually told me I was more interested in being an engineer than a scientist.

14-year-old Miles Wu folded origami pattern that holds 10k times its own weight

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