Quote of the Day
Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.
— John Steinbeck
I have always been a big fan of origami -- especially rigid origami. I saw two articles in the engineering press that are definitely worth taking a look at.
Folding Microscope
The first item is an origami-based microscope called the Foldscope.This is an excellent example of the kind of open-source hardware projects that are possible. Here are the assembly instructions on Youtube.
Shape-Altering Origami Wheels
The next item uses origami to make a flexible wheel. I can see all sorts of robot uses for this technology. Here is a link to an article in an online newspaper. Buzzfeed covered it on Youtube as well (below).