From Papercraft to Paper Mechatronics: Exploring a New Medium and Developing a Computational Design Tool.

ABSTRACTPaper Mechatronics is a novel interdisciplinary design medium, enabled by recent advances in craft technologies: the term refers to a reappraisal of traditional papercraft in combination with accessible mechanical, electronic, and computational elements. I am investigating the design space of paper mechatronics as a new hands-on medium by developing a series of examples and building a computational tool, FoldMecha, to support non-experts to design and construct their own paper mechatronics models. This paper describes how I used the tool to create two kinds of paper mechatronics models: walkers and flowers and discuss next steps.