When making the octahedron, or icosahedron you need to make an additional diagonal fold across the square part of the unit. There should be two triangular pockets that you can use to insert other units into. Tuck it into the bottom flap:įold the corners in to form a square. Refold the top corner down along the previously formed crease. Fold the bottom flap up to meet the middle crease: Start by folding the top down to meet the crease in the middle:įold the bottom up to meet the crease in the middle:įold the bottom corner up to meet the upper crease: Now you are going to fold the paper in fourths. You should have a horizontal crease in the middle: If you are using colored origami paper, flip it so it is colored side down: This seems to be a good size for modular origami. This makes crease marks that I cut along to make 4 square sheets that are 4.25 inches on a side. I like using smaller paper so I usually fold in half vertically, and then horizontally. The square created above is 8.5 inches on a side. Take an ordinary piece of paper and fold it diagonally. If you need to make square paper, here is a fast way to do it. Paper (square origami paper is preferred as it folds much better)Īll of the instructions below assume square paper is being used.In the rest of this post we are going to learn how to make the Sonobe unit and each of these models. Below are a few models that are easy to make using this unit. The Sonobe unit is a simple example unit from modular origami that is both easy to fold and compatible for constructing a large variety of models. In modular origami, you combine multiple units folded from single pieces of paper into more complicated forms. You can then slide the bottom green point into the blue sleeve it is pointed at.Īt this point, we have three pieces connected, all with one point still available to connect into the next pieces.Modular origami is a technique that can be used to build some pretty interesting and impressive models of mathematical objects. Here I put one edge of the blue piece in the same way, where the points of the pink piece are on top and bottom and not covered by the blue one. Connect piece 3 into 2 and piece 1 into 3 To make assembly easier, especially for those just using white paper, you can write the names of the colors or number the pieces with a pencil to help you keep track. There will be two triangles of the same color, straight across from each other, and two more, both of different colors. If you use all different colors, every side will only have three colors. The assembly isn’t that hard you can probably figure it out by simply following one rule. Slide the pink piece into the green from the right so that the points of the green piece are on the top and bottom. ASSEMBLY: Start by putting one piece into another Bring both edges to the crease you just madeįold both outer edges to meet on the center line and crease the edges.ġ0. You can unfold this once you have completed the fold to get ready for the next step. Fold the paper directly in halfįold the paper in half from the left to right edge and give it a good crease. It just makes the assembly a bit easier to explain and understand. I used different colors for each sheet, but this is not necessary to complete the cube. If you are short on square paper, you can follow this quick guide to make printer paper square. In this guide, we use six different colored sheets of square origami paper with the same color on both sides. Gifting Idea: Before finishing the assembly in the last step, stick a gift inside for someone to find! This beginner project consists of folding six sheets of paper the same way and connecting them in a cube.įolding each sheet will take 2-3 minutes, and assembling the cube will take another few minutes. With these origami instructions, you can learn how to fold an easy origami cube!

Origami cube