Inspiration from folding patterns

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Abstract

Origami is generally associated with decorative art, not the engineering
world. For some time now, however, engineers have been using the gigantic
database of origami folding patterns as inspiration for designing deployable
mechanisms that can be fabricated efficiently from a flat sheet material.
Most of these mechanisms do not contain springs, because by introducing
springs, the advantageous planar properties of the design are lost.
Yet there is a trick.