14yo won $25k for origami, discovered pattern that holds 10k times its weight
10 days ago
- #Innovation
- #STEM
- #Origami
- Miles Wu, a 14-year-old from New York City, won a $25,000 award for his research project combining origami and physics.
- His project focused on the Miura-ori origami fold, testing its strength-to-weight ratio across different paper types and parallelogram dimensions.
- Wu conducted 108 trials on 54 hand-folded variations, finding that copy paper had the strongest strength-to-weight ratio, capable of holding over 10,000 times its own weight.
- The Miura-ori fold could potentially improve deployable structures used in emergency situations, offering strength, lightness, and compactness.
- Wu won the top prize at the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge, excelling in both his project and leadership during the competition.
- He plans to use the award money for higher education and aims to prototype a Miura-ori-based emergency shelter to help in real-life situations.
- The competition highlights the importance of STEM education for young innovators, with many participants considering careers in STEM fields.