WOW Wednesday

Tomorrow I'll be teaching 125 grade seven kids about origami, math, and science. Luckily, not all at once. They'll hit me in four mobs. If I remember grade seven correctly, "mob" is the correct term. We're going to make modular polyhedra. Is that the right level for grade seven? I seem to remember we did polyhedra back when I was in grade seven. Anyway, since I just finished turning 400+ sheets of coloured office paper from rectangles into squares, I'll share my tip of how to get reasonably good squares with a standard office guillotine paper cutter.



Mass Producing Origami Squares from Office Paper

First of all, ignore the lines on the paper cutter. They are nowhere near accurate, and will only produce bad squares. (aka near-square rectangles.)

Lift the guillotine arm about half way, so that the midpoint of the arm is in contact with the base. Take a piece of paper, and rest it against both the arm and the guide at the top, with the long side against the arm. (We'll hope the guide at the top is at least square and not skewed.)

Take a scrap piece of paper, and butt it up against the first piece of paper, on the opposite side from the guillotine arm. Tape this scrap piece to the base, but don't place any tape along the edge in contact with the good paper. This scrap of paper will be your paper guide, and you will be able to use it by touch. Lining up by touch is much faster than by eye.

Now, taking a few sheets at a time, make sure they're aligned, and then butt them up agains the paper guide and top of the base (this time with the long edge along the top of the base), and, while holding the paper firmly to the base, bring the guillotine arm down.

You don't want to cut too many sheets at once, because the guillotine arm will pull the paper and you wont get squares.

I'd include pictures, but I left m camera at home.