On Fri, 10 Oct 2014 09:21:32 -0500, Gerardo @neorigami.com wrote: >I want to ask permission to fold this model, the thing is that one source >tells me it's a traditional model, another tells me it's by Miyuki >Kawamura, and one more shows me a variation and tells me that the original >version was by Robert Neal. > >Who should I contact for authorization then? > >Here are the links: > >Traditional: >http://www.origami-instructions.com/easy-origami-modular-spinner.html > >By Miyuki Kawamura: http://gurmeet.net/origami/octahedral-skeleton/ > >By Robert Neal: http://origamist.de/pdf/24/octahedron1.pdf > > >On a related note, each one gives me a different name. Which is the real >one? > >Thank you guys!
As it happens, I invented it in high school (I was so proud of it!) When I got to college my friend Ken Kawamura (no relation to Miyuki Kawamura AFAIK) saw it and came back a week later with a stellated octahedron (the same model turned inside out - using preliminary folds instead of waterbomb bases) and another week went by and we both came back with the 12-piece hemicuboctahedron (he was the one who figured out the "butterfly ball" maneuver so he gets the credit). We spent my freshman year developing an entire family of models based on the original hemioctahedron. It wasn't until several years later that I discovered the original model wasn't so original after all. I had merely rediscovered it and some of the family members descended from it turned out to be reinventions as well. It wasn't that we wrongfully claimed someone else's work as our own. It was simply the case that we stumbled without knowing it across the same model someone else had. (I suspect this is more common with geometric than with representative models.) In my case I was sitting at dinner with my family one night and all at once the model and how it locked together appeared to me in an origamic epiphany. It was so striking and so beautiful that I jumped up and left the dinner table (something not done in our family save for the direst of emergencies!), ran to my room and built it quickly lest I lose the inspiration. It went together just as I envisioned/ It was beautiful. I had not seen the model before. I had only been folding for about six months or so and had access to few origami books at the time. It just came to me. It was my model and I was proud of it. I don't know the stories behind others' discovery of this model but I wouldn't doubt for a second they too felt like they invented it - because for years I know I did. It may not be the most incredible geometric model ever, but it has such an amazing beauty of construction that it is hard not to claim ownership of it when you think you're the first to create it. So, to answer your question, if you'd like to teach it, feel free. If you wish to honor those who came before you, I'd suggest "Discovered by Kawamura, Neale, Power, et. al.". As far as naming it, I originally called it an anti-stellated octahedron (because I knew of no generic term for a figure with the sides being pushed into points instead of pulled out), I now believe the more accepted nomenclature is hemi-octahedron, and I have seen it called more than once just an ornament. Use whatever best suits your purpose. In any case, happy folding and happy teaching. Joe Power
