Pop Up
History of Paper Engineering
Have you ever read a pop-up book? How do they work? When were they invented?
The first movable books were created for educational purposes as early as the 15th century, almost 500 years ago! One of the first books was an anatomy book that used flaps for each layer of the human body. This book was created in 1553 by Andreas Vesalius. People start creating movable books for recreational purposes (just for fun) hundreds of years later. This time, the books used flaps to reveal different adventure scenes in a story.
Engineers and artists think about forces when designing or building something. What is a force? (Answer: A push or pull on an object.) Not all forces occur naturally like wind and gravity. People can create forces using energy. This occurs when we push someone on a swing, use our feet to push a skateboard or pull someone in a wagon. When we read pop-up books we apply very small forces (pushes or pulls) to tabs and flaps to make them move.
Engineers and artists take into consideration the impact of manmade forces on an object they design, as well as natural ones. For example, is it important for an engineer to consider the impact of the accumulated weight of many people as they walk across a floor on the second story of a building? Even the smallest forces need to be taken into account. Any push or pull that affects the balance of a structure, large or small, must be thought about by engineers and artists during the design and creation process. In making pop-up or moving books, the creators are called “paper engineers.”
Planning ahead is a very important part of the engineering design process. Why? (Answers: It helps with the collection of materials, prevents the wasting of materials, saves time during the construction phase, and keeps projects organized.)
Lesson: choose option 1 or option 2
option 1 - complete at least 3 of these below
staircase
spiral and pull through
templates and directions
many different ideas
option 2
build a scenes with complex and many layers
she created these pieces by layering up 4 colors of paper cut outs
