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14-year-old Miles Wu folded origami pattern that holds 10k times its own weight
218 points by bookofjoe 3 hours ago | 37 comments
  • givemeethekeys
    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.
    • nerdsniper
      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.

      • sigmoid10
        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.
        • nerdsniper
          > Can you really say that unless you switched fields multiple times?

          I have ;-) far too many times! Even going back and taking undergrad math coursework that my engineering curriculum didn't have like Discrete Math or Statistics got a lot harder than calculus / differential equations was when I was younger. I felt like I got less out of each hour, and also couldn't put in as many hours - not just because I have more responsibilities, but also because my brain just gets tired after fewer hours.

    • uoaei
      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.
      • adfm
        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/

      • avadodin
        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?

        • retube
          it's 10k, 10,000, not 10
      • croisillon
        i hear he didn't even produce the paper himself
      • ForHackernews
        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.
      • nine_k
        "Miura" is the name of the astrophysicist. "Ori" (折り) just means "fold", as in "origami" = "fold+paper".
    • dottjt
      Rather than age, isn't this more a trait of autism than anything else?
      • JumpCrisscross
        > isn't this more a trait of autism than anything else?

        No. It’s a sign of drive and discipline.

        The latter, specifically the focus element, overlaps with autism. But more broadly it does not. (There are a lot of impressive teenagers applying themselves diligently to impressive ends. Most of them are not on the spectrum, though I suspect mild autism is slightly over-represented in that set.)

      • dbacar
        And this is all you can come up with this story?
      • anonym29
        Not all autism presents with intense narrow interests, and not all expressions of intense narrow interest are autism.

        Would you say the same for a teenage sports prodigy?

        • dottjt
          Of course. But obviously I wouldn't be referring to those other types of autism in this case. Why would I?
  • mlhpdx
    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?

    • JumpCrisscross
      > 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.

  • tgtweak
    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.

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

  • Aeroi
    what if, instead you just placed whatever weight you wanted onto a flat unfolded piece of paper.
  • pants2
    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
      wtf, why lego, whhhy? "The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

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

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

        What is "your country?"

        • abanana
          It's Lego Masters USA (Fox), rather than the Lego company itself, so I imagine they're being extra-careful with licensing.

          I'm in the UK and it's geoblocked for me.

  • PunchyHamster
    Triangles together strong!
  • ck2
    Could concept be applied to submarine vehicles to exponential increase their resistance to pressure at depth?
    • codeddesign
      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).
  • SilentM68
    Smart teen :)
  • xqcgrek2
    These teen science fair winners almost never amount to anything exceptional, and are a product intense parental supervision. Most universities have wised up.
  • amelius
    Where can we read about the other submissions?
  • darig
    [dead]
  • tl2do
    [flagged]