Make Your Own Paper Sculptures

When I was in college my roommate and I liked to fold origami. One day, while working with the traditional German Bell fold, we tried to combine several units (50 or so!) to form a bigger sculpture. Even though we achieved the feat of making a large sculpture, we thought, “If only we could figure out a way to make the sides straight, we could construct even more shapes with sturdy sides.” Well, after fooling around a bit we discovered that if we only folded the point of each corner to the bottom of the side, we could make straight sided pyramids. Wow! What a difference it made!

Interesting History: While traveling with a quartet singing group in college we traveled to many states. While traveling in a Dodge van I folded many sculptures and gave them away at the stops along the way. Two years after I gave away one project I found it in a glass hutch still on display when I returned to the area on another trip. I also often used the rocket and satellite folds in a devotional at campfires and chapels. They were used to illustrate the need for taking the message of the Gospel to all the world just like the satellites are constantly communicating messages below.

After many years of perfecting the folds and finding new ways to combine them I thought it would be fun to share some of these with you. What kinds of things can you make using these pyramid units?

It All Starts With A Square:

To begin the fold you need a square of paper. Fold an X on one side, then turn it over and fold a cross. This gives you the lines to mark the folding pattern.

Next, you turn the paper in the diamond pattern. then fold an airplane point on the end like this:

Next, you fold the pointed end back down to the intersection of the cross shape below:

Fold Backs Are Important!

Repeat this on all four corners of the diamond. Don’t forget to fold the pointed ends back down on each corner. It may even look like it is already folded on one side, but it is not on the other. To check to see if you did it correctly, just look in the center of the diamond and you should see a square in the center. If one side of the square is missing, that is the point that needs to be folded back to the middle.

This Will Do In A Pinch!

Pinch in the middle of each side and you should see the star shape above. Next, you will lift the four points up to form the pyramid.

Part of the trick is when you glue it together. Before you glue the sides up, put a little glue inside two opposite sides and press down. This will keep the form from bulging out in the middle and makes it much easier to glue up the side pieces. (Hint: Do not do this when making the Gluck Interlock!)

Gluing Secret To Making A Sharp Looking Form:

Next, you will apply glue to outside edges of the pointed sides so they make contact with the upright middle points to form the pyramid. Be sure to put the glue only on the edges since the middle part does not make contact when the sides are raised. Just a thin line of glue will work. Too much will only take longer to set and will ooze out and ruin your forms appearance.

Many Ways To Combine The Base Units:

Now that you have learned how to fold and glue them into pyramids, lets see some other ways to combine them to make interesting shapes.

You can just start gluing them together on the sides. Here is what that looks like:

Discovering New Ways To Combine The Pyramids:

Through the years my students and I have found many ways to combine the units. Here are a few of the notable ones:

The Gluck Interlock: Take one unglued form and place it upside down on top of another unit. Glue in place. This base form gives you many places to glue additional units.

If you start with one Gluck Interlock and place a pyramid on every surface you will construct a neat satellite like the one on the right below:

If you stack five Gluck Interlocks on top of one another then add a nose cone and fins, you get the rocket on the left above. Using hole punches you can decorate the sides to make a more interesting sculpture.

Experiment and you may discover other ways to combine them to make many interesting projects. One of the most amazing is the Globe Base seen at the middle of this sculpture:

In the above sculpture I added pyramids to the six end pieces to make this form.

One of my students was trying to make a Gluck Interlock and stumbled upon a new interlock. This is the Voiles Interlock: It looks like a crystal and allows you to make long straight columns:

Another student glued seven of the pyramids into a circle to make the Keifer Interlock: You can see the wheel base in the center of this star form to which I added seven outer pyramids:

Star Attraction:

What If You Start With A Triangle?:

If you start with a triangle, instead of a square, you can make long, slender triangular pyramids. They can also be combined to make many interesting form. Here you can see some insect legs combining several units:

By combining these forms together the possibilities are endless. I have had students construct many different animals, buildings, aircraft, vehicles, and more. One student even made a robot from Star Wars.

This was one I made to hang in my classroom. We called it the Revolving Rooster.

The project below uses thirty eight pyramid units.

See what can be made from triangle units below. These were made with recycled computer paper from the days when the paper had holes along the sides to be pulled through the printer on sprockets.