EAGER: Collaborative Research: Origami-Based Extremely-Packed Multistable Pop-Up Design for Medical Masks

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Intellectual Merit:The research project aims to develop fundamental understanding of novel twisting-enabled pop-up origami structures with multi-stability. Practical applications of origami pop-up structures require a canopy and connected multiple origami rings to form a functional continuous face, which limits the accessibility of folding paths. This research will study how interactions among origami rings will affect folding and unfolding and provide understanding and identify the rules to design folding paths to overcome constraints imposed by these interactions. The research will yield knowledge about the energy landscape of origami rings and the stability of different states. Such understanding will facilitate the design of novel twisting-enabled pop-up and self-assembled structures with multi-stability. Broader Impacts: This research project could enable a new class of origami structures with great potential for future applications. The proposed Origami design with rapid pop-up and self-assembly could greatly increase transportation efficiency of masks during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the proposed origami concept can be readily applied to design other personal protection equipment such as eyewear, gowns, etc. It could also lead to new origami structures that are highly desirable in many demanding applications such as national security and human health. The research will increase the public scientific literacy and public engagement with science and technology and encourage the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM through integration of the research with carefully designed educational tasks and by integrating the advanced material research from the project into course development in existing undergraduate and high-level graduate courses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.