MAYA WEI-HAAS: Origami is helping researchers really dream big. The idea of origami or folding these kind of fold patterns is that it has essentially provided a new toolkit for science and innovation that allows researchers to kind of manipulate that shape and movement and also even properties of the material that they're working with in all kinds of ways and also for all kinds of things-- face masks or a kayak or even living cells. I mean, these are materials that you wouldn't necessarily think of as things that you might want to use origami with. But it turns out that a lot of the methods that are used for paper folding can actually help change the properties or help us work better with a lot of these different materials. I was really fascinated with the biomedicine side of this. It is a tiny cylinder that has folds in it that allows it to twist as it collapses or expands. And this pattern actually is designed so that it could be moved throughout the body using a magnetic field-- deliver medicine to, like, a targeted spot on the body. So it can collapse and then pump out the medicine, like kind of an accordion, almost like a pumping mechanism. And then the fold patterns are sort of-- they swirl around it, and so that it helps the little cylinder to twist. So it helps with the locomotion of it as well. There's sort of a rigidity that we think of when we think of science. But really, there's a huge amount of creativity when designing these projects and thinking about solutions. Origami helps kind of instill creativity in the way researchers are thinking about what they're doing. Lot to be said for adding art into science and technology. [MUSIC PLAYING]