Valentine's Day prototype


The idea is based on about a dozen or so of these. Smaller than these. I did this once with a friend and realized not everybody can do this easily. You should be able to do it with two snips, or even one if your scissors are long enough. You hold the scissors steady mostly and turn the paper to feed it. 






It's not fully elaborated. This is showing the extent that hearts are flung beyond the edges  when the card is opened. There are more arms extending with more hearts flinging in the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions, thereabouts, extending from the center, and even more loaded onto the central mechanisms. Two mechanisms in one due to a bit of origami. 

The mechanism is best suited for things like a car wreck. As far as pop-ups go, nothing actually stands up unless the mechanism is inserted a bit off from perfection, otherwise it will lay flat. 

The content added to the mechanism, hearts in this case, it could as easily be butterflies, flowers, snowflakes, I used Easter eggs one time, car parts, anything you care to fling around chaotically and dramatically.

It relies on two basic basic pop-up mechanisms placed in immediate opposition to each other, one alone is good enough but now there are two, and they're connected diagonally across the central fold so that the connection must twist in order to open, and when it does it twists unwillingly there is a  bit of force, and then it hastens to fall flat, and resists closing the same way, with a forced twist. It's very dramatic with content flipping all around and twisting all around.

Those two mechanisms can be constructed together as one mechanism, and this is what makes this a bit unusual.










7 comments:

Unknown said...

I made this and it seems to be lacking the twist.
When you make the little origami thing do you put the point if it at a 90 degree angle to the fold?

Chip Ahoy said...

There are two V-mechanism posts here but they're scored and cut together as if they are one, but they are not, they are two put together into one.

When they were put together they lost their separate glue tabs and now their glue tabs are shared.

Each V-mechanism is split down the center and one side is peeled back toward the opposite V-mechanism but they cannot connect because they cannot reach each other. That's what the cross piece is for. It is the cross piece that becomes twisted and flips inside to open and shut. The V-mechanism do what they always do but now part of it is tied to the other. It's an impossible situation until it can can be twisted fully either open or shut. I'll try to show this more clearly in non-prototype form.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Sorry. I'm really a tech dunce and I don't know how to do a link to photobucket.
One more try.
href="http://s1338.beta.photobucket.com/user/wyosis/library/mechanism">mechanism<img

Unknown said...

Another fail. Sorry.

Chip Ahoy said...

That's origamically perfect. The third post shows how to connect them.

Unknown said...

Thanks.
You are the best. I about drove myself crazy because the thing kept tearing at the corner of the V.