Origami Swing Set Project

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Step 4: Attach to overhead cross bar

Next step creates the swing chains.

Take one of the pieces with connectors on one end (you should have two left).

About an inch and a half up from the bottom of the straight end, make a crease of about 45 degrees. This crease should be in a plane perpendicular to the direction of the cross-bar connector. In other words — if you put a stick in the connector end pointing straight up, this fold needs to be made on the flat ground — left or right. If the fold makes the straight end go up or down vertically, you've folded the wrong way.

Now measure up from the bottom of that piece one inch and make a fold in the opposite direction in a 135 degree angle This will form kind of a lopsided "V" on the end with no connector. The long part of the "V" should be perpendicular to the long portion of the swing chain. This is how the seat connects to the swing chain. (Don't worry about all those degrees — just make it close and ensure the seat is flat).

Repeat this for the other swing chain making sure the lengths and folds are the same for both swing chains.

Step 5: Fold the seat

Now the seat needs to be folded so it will attach to the swing chains.

Take a new wrapper (you probably need another piece of gum by now) and fold it in thirds lengthwise. You want it to be about 3/4 inch wide. If it's a little over or under it won't hurt anything.

Now determine how wide you want the seat. The one here is about 1-inch wide. Take the wrapper and make two folds from each end so that the one inch is centered in the folds. So in my case, with a wrapper 3 1/2 inches long, that leaves 1 1/4 inches on each side so that it's centered. Again, you don' t need to be exact. You just need enough on each side to wrap around the swing chain connectors. Your wrapper should now look like a big "U" shape.

Take a straight stick and roll up one leg of the "U" all the way to the middle in a tight roll. Do the same for the other leg and put the straight stick back out.

Step 6: Assemble the overhead cross-bar

This step you'll assemble the overhead cross-bar to the side supports and the swing chains.

Take one of the "A" side supports created earlier. Turn the connectors on the top of the "A" so that the spiral legs point out from the middle where they meet. Slide the straight stick through the connectors.

You may need to twist a bit to get them through. I like to have the supports for the "A" pieces on the outside of the swing on both sides.

Next put the swing chains on the bar. Thread the swing chains onto the cross-bar so that the bottom connectors face in opposite directions. The connectors at top don't matter — you'll have plenty of room for the spiral connectors up there. Position the swing chains in the middle of the cross-bar about an inch apart from each other.

Now put the cross bar through the top connectors of the other "A" support. Again — make sure the spiral connectors face outward from the point the two connector touch.

Step 7: Put on the seat

Final step is to assemble the seat.

Take the seat and slide the straight part of the swing chain into the hole formed on one side of the seat. Repeat on the opposite side going the other direction.

Congratulations, you did it!

I made one of these on a plane trip from California. It took a couple of hours. You could probably get one of these done in much less time since you have instructions. The time consuming part is making all the sticks, which I said before are easy and can be done when you're just sitting around sometime. •

© 2008 Tom Hall. All rights reserved.

Tom is an artist expressing himself through gum wrapper origami. Tom is also an IT project manager so is looking for ways to incorporate innovation techniques to the many project processes used for work. More »

7/16/08