How 14-year-old Miles Wu is using origami to design stronger shelters

Image: Society for Science At 14, Miles Wu is exploring how an ancient paper-folding technique could inspire stronger and more portable structures for emergencies. An eighth-grade student at Hunter College High School in New York, Wu spent the past year investigating the Miura-ori, a geometric origami pattern known for folding flat sheets into compact forms. His interest grew as he read about disasters including the Los Angeles wildfires and Hurricane Helene. He wondered whether the pattern's combination of strength, portability and ability to fold flat could make it useful for deployable shelters. To test the idea, Wu created 54 different Miura-ori variations, changing their dimensions, fold angles and paper weights. The strongest designs supported an extraordinary 9,069 times their own weight. His project, titled ‘Optimising the Strength-to-Weight Ratio of Miura-Ori Patterns,’ was selected for the 2025 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. The details of his experiment and background are documented by the Society for Science.Miles Wu found an engineering question inside his love of origamiWu had been folding origami for seven years when his hobby began developing ...