I was prepared to teach the crane, but we ran out of time. Had 18 signed up and about 12 actually came. I used easalboard paper (27"x34" cut to 27"x27"), prefolded when I was instructing. Worked pretty well.
My wife, Charre helped out as an assistant.
Note: If doing inflatable models, bring straws for the women with lipstick!
Note: Rememeber to have a sign-in sheet to collect email addresses of interested parties for possible later contact for an origami club.
The workshop has been in the planning stage for about 3 months now. I've been talking to the branch manager and we finalized the date and time about 2 months ago. About 2-3 weeks ago, we set up a display of my origami work (and a few of my wife's and a couple from a friend) in one of the display cases. Generated interest in about 18 people. 11 actually showed up. The library provided some space and precut bond paper for the workshop. My plan was to build in complexity in the models. The library also had a sampling of origami books in the room for people to look at and check out.
I forget who it was that recommended #1 as a first model because it gave people a box to carry all their other models in, but who ever it was: "Thanks!"
I was able to find diagrams of all except #2 in 3 books from the library. I photocopied those pages and provided them as hand outs. I also had a list of origami URLs for them to peruse. The class ran about 1.5 hours, getting started about 10-ish minutes late.
I used easalboard paper at 27"x34" cut to 27"x27". I recommend prefolding the models to have the creases in place to make it easier to fold in front of your students.
All in all it went pretty well. I think there is enough interest to possibly have a second one. I'm thinking of doing the crane and the sonobe unit cube, with hints toward the 12 and 30 unit balls. If I do the sonobe, I'll use 10" paper to demonstrate. 27" paper would be WAY too big to handle assembling in the air!
Another thought was do do a class on functional/decorative origami. Envelopes, boxes, containers and the like.
I'm thinking of doing a quarterly origami workshop. We'll see how it goes...
There were a couple of kids in the class. WHile this was an adult class, if the kids were not too young AND the parent was also there, I was not going to block them. There was some interest in a kids class, but I'm not sure if I am ready for that...
I do know that there is someone at the main library that teaches kids classes, so I need to hunt her down...
I'm hoping to have enough interest to start an Origami group that meets once a month. We'll see...
Addendum: Upon doing some back searches on the origami list archives:
The original message has the subject line of "Help folding a wedding favor", dated Jun 23, 1999.
I think the best ASCII description is at:
http://origami.kvi.nl/cgi-bin/oigquery.sh?file=a0054x/arc00545.txt&msgnr=10
According to one of the responders, it is diagrammed in several of the books by Gay Merrill Gross and is called a Card Case (attributed to Humiaki Huzita). Looks like I need to update my notes and handouts...
I've used appropriately sized ones for many things including gift tags and business card holders. It seems to be quite versatile.
If all goes well, I may be giving the workshop at the other Garland, TX libraries (the Nicholson Memorial Library System). We'll see how it goes. If well, I'll put together a second one, probably with the crane and the sonobe unit cube. I've left many 12 and 30 sonobe unit balls floating around and people are interested in it. Not to mention the multi-colored basketball sized one currently in the library showcase. Tends to draw attention. ;-)
There is also some interest in the triangular "chinese" unit that I have some swans, baskets and vase made out of. ( http://origami.kvi.nl/models/units/refugeeb.gif, http://www.wgn.net/~nienhuis/chinese.html#folds) Unfortunately, while the module is simple, the folding of 100's to make models is defiantly outside the scope of a workshop. If an origami group gets formed out of all of this, then maybe a group project would work, giving everyone a chance to fold a few units and put them together in the final group model. Well... maybe the dragonfly, it only needs 38 pieces. For most people, that would probably be more then enough for them to fold in an evening. An accomplished folder can fold the modules in about 30-35 seconds. Probably close to 60 seconds for an inexperienced folder. It could be a daunting task for all but the more diehard. ;-) We'll see...
