The ancient art of origami is well known for transforming sheets of paper and other foldable materials into complex 3D shapes. But now, chemical engineers have extended the centuries-old practice to ...

When we say that Erik Demaine has spent the best part of the past two decades folding paper into funny shapes, it’s a bit more impressive than it sounds. In fact, as an 18-year-old Ph.D. student (yes, ...

A computational design tool created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology lets you fold a piece of metal or plastic into a “complex 3D shape” like a mask or ...

Take a piece of paper. Fold it in half, and you’ve turned a floppy sheet into a three-dimensional structure that can stand up, even if a bit wobbly, on its own. A few more deliberate folds, and you ...

3D shapes can be made from 2D shapes called nets. Watch the video to learn how 3D shapes, such as a cube, can be created from nets, an arrangement of 2D shapes. Let's talk about nets. More ...

3D printing of complex objects typically takes a long time due to the printing process necessarily laying down a large number of 2D layers to build up the object. The process usually wastes a lot of ...

In the realm of microrobotics, small and malleable machines are, in the meme-y words of Mugatu, so hot right now. Scientists appear to be doing everything they can to crack the code behind what it ...