PowerPoint & LED Projector Enable New Technique for Self-Folding Origami

Science and Technology

Science and Technology

PowerPoint & LED Projector Enable New Technique for Self-Folding Origami






April 28, 2017
• Atlanta, GA








Click image to enlarge

A tiny origami structure created through a self-folding process is shown on a quarter for size comparison. (Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)





Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Peking University have found a new use for the ubiquitous PowerPoint slide: Producing self-folding three-dimensional origami structures from photocurable liquid polymers.

The technique involves projecting a grayscale pattern of light and dark shapes onto a thin layer of liquid acrylate polymer placed in a plate or between two glass slides. A photoinitiator material mixed into the polymer initiates a crosslinking reaction when struck by light from an ordinary LED projector, causing a solid film to form. A light-absorbing dye in the polymer serves as a regulator for the light. Due to the complicated interaction between the evolution of the polymer network and volume shrinkage during photo curing, areas of the polymer that receive less light exhibit more apparent bending behavior.

When the newly-created polymer film is removed from the liquid polymer, the stress created in the film by the differential shrinkage causes the folding to begin. To make the most complex origami structures, the researchers shine light onto both sides of the structures. 

Origami structures produced so far include tiny tables, capsules, flowers, birds and the traditional miura-ori fold – all about a half-inch in size. The origami structures could have applications in soft robots, microelectronics, soft actuators, mechanical metamaterials and biomedical devices. 

“The basic idea of our method is to utilize the volume shrinkage phenomenon during photo-polymerization,” said Jerry Qi, a professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. “During a specific type of photopolymerization, frontal photopolymerization, the liquid resin is cured continuously from the side under light irradiation toward the inner side. This creates a non-uniform stress ...

Read More