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Origami boxes
My shoulder's still too bad for me to read/write to LJ, but this amused me, so I'm noting it down.
Richard got me a book for Christmas on folding origami boxes and I've been working my way through it steadily trying every variation of every box. The day before yesterday I got onto hexagonal boxes. I'd already found a few minor mistakes in the book (which is why I'm not going to put in a link to it as I can't really recommend it) but the section on nesting hexagonal boxes was riddled with errors, or folds that simply led to distorted boxes.
For the first time in my life, I found myself mentally folding boxes when I was going to sleep. In an odd moment of clarity, my brain reminded me that cos 60 degrees was .5 and this allowed me to work out why one of the instructions was wrong and how to correct for it. (It was all to do with creating equilateral triangles by folding square paper).
This is the first time since I left school that I've found a practical use for a cosine!
In the morning, I got up and folded a perfect hexagonal box that nested exactly in the one I'd made the day before.
Following the instructions in the book led to boxes that had either a hole or a dome in the middle. It also led to the inside not having an even colour. (insofar as you can get an even colour in an origami box, but you try to avoid the back of the paper showing in random places)
Richard got me a book for Christmas on folding origami boxes and I've been working my way through it steadily trying every variation of every box. The day before yesterday I got onto hexagonal boxes. I'd already found a few minor mistakes in the book (which is why I'm not going to put in a link to it as I can't really recommend it) but the section on nesting hexagonal boxes was riddled with errors, or folds that simply led to distorted boxes.
For the first time in my life, I found myself mentally folding boxes when I was going to sleep. In an odd moment of clarity, my brain reminded me that cos 60 degrees was .5 and this allowed me to work out why one of the instructions was wrong and how to correct for it. (It was all to do with creating equilateral triangles by folding square paper).
This is the first time since I left school that I've found a practical use for a cosine!
In the morning, I got up and folded a perfect hexagonal box that nested exactly in the one I'd made the day before.
Following the instructions in the book led to boxes that had either a hole or a dome in the middle. It also led to the inside not having an even colour. (insofar as you can get an even colour in an origami box, but you try to avoid the back of the paper showing in random places)