Astounding Papercraft Skills Result In This Working Robot

It would have been very hard to believe this is made from paper if we hadn’t seen all the parts being built. As a still image it looks neat, but the speed at which those paper gears turn in the video after the break will certainly leave you slack-jawed. It really is a walking robot made using papercraft (translated).

These are actually being sold as kits, but there’s not much in the way of materials. You’ll get six sheets of paper, some skewers which act as the axles, and a bit of elastic band which stores potential energy when winding-up the model. The genius is in the design, which is printed on those sheets of paper. The build process involves plenty of delicate work. Dozens of cuts lead into hundreds of folds, and that’s before assembly even starts. We’ve never considered building a ship in a bottle, but this might be right up our alley. If you need to give a gift to a tinkerer this should show up high on the idea list.

Robot demo

Assembly process

[via Make]

20 thoughts on “Astounding Papercraft Skills Result In This Working Robot

      1. I do not beleve that definition to be fully accurate.
        Defition of the word “robot” according to Wikipedia:
        “A robot is a mechanical device that can perform tasks automatically. It may – but need not – be humanoid in appearance.”

        So a robot may not look like a human or talk or act like one. For example most of us agree that the industial robots do not look or act like humans, nor does the printer on your desk. (a mechanical device that automatically (without help of an operator) prints text or images)

        Also, the defition does not specify if a robot needs to be powered by electricity, internal combustion, steam or a rubber band.

        So, this is clearly a robot and one with very unique and elegant design. Building something like that out of ordinary paper requires a great engineer and a lot of patience that not all of us have.
        Keep up the good work!

      2. And we all know just how trustworthy wikipedia is, versus a dictionary definition…

        It’s a cool project that someone designed and executed. Get over nitpicking it and go make something.

  1. title should be “super-human amount of patience results in working papercraft robot”

    srsly, release the cad on thingiverse. it’s a natural design for 3dp. it would make a great alternative to makerbot’s made-in-china wind-up kits for making “3d printed” robot toys.

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