Taken from Introduction: Modeling and manipulation of flexible objects, folding manipulation, and analysis and planning for closed-chain structures are key areas on the boundaries of what we understand about manipulation science. Origami is a concrete example for study. Paper is flexible and springy, but stretches hardly at all; simulation and manipulation are hard. Complex origami involves many thicknesses of paper; each successive fold is more difficult than the last, and the volume or surface area typically shrinks with each fold. We might model creases as joints, and the uncreased regions as rigid bodies. If the creases cross, it turns out that the mechanism is a closed chain. Although robot configuration spaces are typically modeled as manifolds, we can make a mechanism with a non-manifold configuration space with just two folds of a flat piece of paper.

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