Amazing!
Idea
As usual, for the two May cards (this and Mother’s Day) I use the same mechanism and try to make them as different as possible. When looking for a new mechanism, I decided to look at pop-ups by David A. Carter. I landed on the second spreadh in 600 Black Spots.
Spread from 600 Black Spots
Design
I used David’s mechanism as a starting point, and decided to make it into a maze. If you start in the lower left on the red leg, you can follow it up on each of the four levels until you reach the center on the top level. I believe there really in only one path, but there may be some cheats. To go between levels you have to go from a flat area to a flat area and can’t use the center support.
Front view
This is the first card that hinges on the short edge! The Bristol paper I use is 11x17, but the grain goes along the short edge, so the final card is 4½” x 5½” instead of the usual 4½” x 6 (12cm x 15cm).
I did one sketch kind of informal, and it didn’t turn out too well as you can see in the photo below (I get angry some times.). The lower image I planned out all the layers on the computer and had the Silhouette Cameo cut it out.
Bad sketch, good sketch
The main mechanim is essentially a floating plane with more floating planes on stacked on top of each other. The first layer has the supports at an angle to make the plane stable. If the supports were vertical, it may open crooked, and could move from side to side. To validate the design, I made a small prototype with an exaggerated angle for the supports on the first layer.
Example
Here’s the side view of the final card, partially closed.
One of the hardest things about this design was making the maze work. I designed a layer on the computer, the overlayed the next layer and made sure I could connect the two. Then when adding supports, I needed to make sure only one of them would go from a flat area to a flat area. Others could go from a side to underneath the layer above, etc., to avoid making another path. It should be fun to try to solve the maze.
Side view
Cover
Build
- 4½” x 5½” (yes, I did say I went metric. The mechanism is all metric, but I was limited to 11” paper).
- The mechanism is made from index paper.
- The cover is Bristol paper.
- Everything was designed on the computer and cut by the Silhouette Cameo.