Gifted student engineers through origami

Nicholas Kramer has his own Web site dedicated to origami, Origami Squared. He identifies a relationship between origami and engineering by using the folded paper art to demonstrate how physical structures are built and behave.

The 14-year-old York Township, PA native knows a bit about engineering himself, as he studies it at York College of Pennsylvania on a full scholarship.

At age 8, after struggling to pay attention in elementary school, Kramer scored above a ninth-grade learning level. He then began home-schooling where he excelled with the freedom of learning at his own pace. When he was 12, Kramer enrolled part-time at York College, and after graduation he plans to get his graduate degree from an engineering school such as MIT.

On his Website, he displays various paper structures through videos and pictures, and links to sites that will teach readers how to recreate the designs.

More than just displaying his work, Kramer argues how doing origami is math and is useful and apparent in everyday life. “Our DNA is made from folds, our skin folds, our clothing folds, essential proteins in our body fold,” Kramer argues. “When I say something, the air is folding, pleating, making waves. Life is practically made from origami.”