Chances are you’ve seen Hoberman spheres, those kinetic lattices made of joint-connected rods that, with a little manual effort, can contract or expand. Inspired by the ancient Japanese arts of origami (paper-folding) and kirigami (paper-folding-and-cutting), a team from Harvard University in the US and Tokyo University in Japan has developed expandable structures that, like Hoberman spheres, use rods and scissored joints. They’re calling them "collapsible scissored surfaces and pantographic lattices" ... although Hobegami would be much cooler and faster to type. Continue Reading Category: Materials , Engineering Tags: Harvard , Tokyo University , Origami , Folding , Shape-shifting