Active Materials

How Do Magnets Make Origami?

Active Materials are substances that are able to fold, bend,
or move themselves without the need for someone to touch
them. Often smart materials are activated by heating them up,
soaking them in water, applying electricity to them, or by
sticking them in a magnetic field. Once activated, these
materials are able to bend, fold, or even walk all without
having someone moving them by hand!
How can materials fold without being touched? That
sounds like magic! However, these types of materials do exist
today, and some scientists are even using them to create
useful origami shapes. This pamphlet will focus on
magnetically activated materials in particular, and how they
can be used to create a simple box.

MAGNETIC?
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How is origami useful?
Archeologists believe that paper folding began as a hobby for
monks in ancient Japan shortly after paper was invented in the
year 105 A.D*. With time, more people around the world had
access to paper, and slowly the art of origami was born!
Today, many people learn how to fold origami so that they
can make shapes like paper cranes and airplanes, while
origami masters continue to discover new techniques and
patterns. However, not all origami is used to make fun arts
and crafts! In fact, paper grocery bags and Chinese food
boxes use specially folded paper to create a useful way to
hold groceries or carryout food.
Aside from paper boxes and bags, two other particularly
useful patterns include the waterbomb seen in Figure 1 on
the right and the miura-ori fold shown in Figure 2. These Figure 1: The waterbomb pattern1 used to
two structures use a variety of carefully folded panels that make a sphere.
allow the paper to shrink and expand, which makes them
appealing for scientists. Some scientists have discovered a
way to make solar panels for satellites that expand
when they enter outer space. Similarly,
doctors have found a way to use origami
make heart stents, which are small
tubes that fit inside your blood
vessels to help keep blood
flowing through your heart Figure 2: The miura-ori pattern2 shown being folded up
after a heart attack. much like NASA uses for satellites.


How do magnets really work?
Magnetism is one of the forces of nature, like gravity, that humans have studied
in order to understand it and use it to our advantage. We know now that magnets stick
to metal and other magnets all thanks to two principles:
Aligning opposite magnetic poles
Connecting invisible magnetic fields

Magnetic Poles
Every magnet has two poles, a north and a south, which almost act as a
way of determining the top and the bottom of a magnet. If you have two magnets,
try to push the ends together and see what happens. If they seem to be pushing
away from one another, you are likely trying to push together either two north
poles or two south poles, and magnets dont like that so they repel one another.
However, if the magnets easily stick together, you have managed to line up the
* http://www.origami.as/Info/history.php
1 Modified image from: http://www.instructables.com/answers/Does-anyone-know-how-many-waterbomb-bases-are-in-t/
2 Image courtesy of Brett M. Cowen.
 north pole from one magnet
to the south pole on the other
magnet. Magnet poles are
attracted to their opposite, so if
a south pole finds a north pole,
the magnets will easily stick
together! Figure 3 on the right
shows simple, rectangular
magnets both attracting and
repelling.

Figure 3: Magnetic poles3 attracting and repelling. North

is in red, while South is in blue.

Magnetic Fields
But wait a minute, doesnt the Earth have a North and South Pole? Does
that make the Earth a giant magnet? Yes, in fact the Earth is actually a very big
magnet that produces useful magnetic fields! Magnetic fields are
invisible lines that connect the north and south pole of any
magnet. These field lines start at the north pole and curve
around the magnet until the reach the south pole as shown
in Figure 4. These field lines are one of the main reasons
that opposite poles attract; because the lines from a north
pole always want to connect to the closest south pole. This
idea can be seen if you have a compass like shown on the
right. A compass uses a small magnet shaped like an arrow,
which, as expected, has a north pole and a south pole. The reason a
compasss needle always points North is because the Earths poles make strong
enough magnetic field lines, that the needles
poles want to line up with the Earths poles.
Dont believe me? Try taking a
magnet and waving it over a
compass. The needle will spin
out of control because it no
longer can decide if it wants to
line up with the Earths field
lines or the small magnets
field lines!

Figure 4: Earths poles4 are actually named incorrectly! Earths

magnetic north pole is located in Antarctica, but we call it the
geographic south pole. Because of this, compass needle tips are
north poles that point towards the magnetic south pole.
3 Image from: http://witherspoonsclass.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/0/6/21063240/8607447_orig.png
4 Image from: https://www.popscicoll.org/dating-ocean-floor/geomag-355.gif
 How do you combine magnets and origami?
While magnets and origami are interesting topics to learn about, you might still
be wondering if and how magnets are able to fold origami? As you know now, origami
has a variety of useful applications in outer space, in peoples blood vessels, and even
in the grocery store. You also understand that magnets are very good at lining up with
magnetic fields and finding opposite magnetic poles. Researchers have taken all of that
knowledge, and have found a way to make materials that fold thanks to small magnet
patches. These patches are often only a few centimeters long, and are made out of
crushed metal powder mixed into elastomer, which is just another name for rubber. The
patches can then be attached to various other materials like paper, plastic, or more
elastomer. The result is a magnetic active material that, when exposed to a strong
enough magnetic field, will fold up like regular paper origami!

Heres how the magnets fold the origami:

The magnet patches on the faces of the origami shape all have their north
and south poles pointing in a certain direction that the scientists planned
beforehand.

The active material is placed inside of a large magnet whose magnetic

field lines point in one direction, lets say for example the field lines point
from the top of the big magnet to the bottom.

The small magnetic patches on the active material all try to align
themselves with the field lines just like a compass aligns with the Earths
field lines.

As the magnetic patches line up with the magnetic field, they lift the
faces of the origami, which in turns folds the origami shape!

Figure 5: [LEFT] This is

what an origami box model
would look like when it is
unfolded and flat. Each
magnet patch has a red
north pole and a blue south
pole, which will align with
the magnetic field of the
large magnet as described
above.
[RIGHT] This is what an
actual origami box using
magnetic patches looks like
inside of a weak magnetic
field on the top and a
strong field on the bottom.
This box is made entirely
out of elastomer.
Can I start making active materials now?
While active materials may seem fun, there are rather difficult to make at home
because many of the supplies and tools needed, like metal powder and a very strong
magnet, are both dangerous and expensive. So sadly, you wont be able to make them
at home, but you should understand every scientific principle behind how magnetic
active materials work. Perhaps some day in the future you will be able to work in a lab
alongside the scientists who continue researching magnetically activated origami.
Hopefully, one day well see companies use magnetic patches to fold their boxes on the
production line, or maybe well see spaceships carry magnetic active materials in order
to deploy their solar panels and satellite dishes. However, right now you can use the
bottom of this page to create your own paper origami shapes inspired by some of the
topics mentioned in this pamphlet!