steps 1-15 - steps 16-24 - steps 25-31 - steps 32-47 - steps 48-55
I had always wanted to fold an origami pyro. I mean, a couple years ago, I couldn't think of anything that would be more fundamentally cool to have than to have my own pyro. But after a few half-hearted tries, I had to give up. There were simply too many points required, too much paper to move, and my mind simply didn't have the power. I was convinced it couldn't be done without first upgrading my brain.
I have this book on origami called Angelfish to Zen. Awesome book, by the way. If you're seriously into origami... read it. The book contains the best models I know, but curiously enough, half of the book was just... reading. That's quite unusual. Usually origami books are like books of piano music. You have the models and maybe an introduction or two, but you don't stick War and Peace onto the front of it.
So it was about this time that I didn't have much better to do, and I sat down and seriously read through it. It was all stuff I loved--math and origami and computers and music. But beyond that, the book contained the most absolutely awesome instructions on how to think in origami, how to see the model rising from the square. And shortly after reading it, I had good half dozen new ideas about how to attack the old pyro problem.
But it wasn't until I was in the middle of explaining to a friend that the origami pyro was "impossible" (an old engineer's term--it means "way too much work"), that I decided to give it another shot. I had been working on a problem with the fact that there were two lasers on the wing, and trying to solve it under conditions pretty much like what it would be on the finished pyro. After solving the wing problem--(I was quite happy with that)--I thought, what the heck? Lets see if I can add a head and pylons and thrusters, and see how far I get before I have to crumple fold the whole mess. And it was done before I even knew it. I still thought I had a couple weeks worth of problems to solve--none with a guaranteed solution-- and suddenly, there I sat in the middle of my American History class holding my very own origami pyro. I had done it! WOO HOO!
Within days, I had refined the formation of the engines and the placement of the pylons. Within weeks, I had folded it enough times to be reasonably confident that it was ready to go. Within years, I was regularly having two paper pyros dog it out in the middle of my Physics II class, while nearby classmates glanced nervously at me as I tried to make both the fusion charging and vulcan shooting sounds at once.
But a whole new problem arose as I began boasting about my crown jewel creation to a friend who lived hundreds of miles away. He wanted to try it, and that meant instructions. At that point, the pyro was still something amorphous in my mind, a single fold from square to ship, and writing out directions... well, I was thoroughly convinced that writing up directions would be impossible. Same friend as convinced me to fold the pyro in the first place, and time found me drawing out sketches and sketches, trying to put to paper this bizarre six-sided sink fold.
The pyro remains the most complicated thing I have ever designed in origami, and very few people I personally know of have completed it. Most go down around step 18, which is an extremely logical place to have trouble (sorry about that, everyone!). But one friend--a genius, but still new to origami--made it to step 20, so give it a shot :)
So here, for everyone who wants to see, is my origami pride and joy. As far as origami design goes, the paper distribution is bad, the locking folds are poor, and it won't fold right with anything but foil backed paper. But it's mine :)
Good luck.
Life size pyro requires 50' x 50' paper.