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How to fold an origami digger

Fold a yellow strip in half and outside-reverse-fold it into a bent digger arm. Cut a black track with round ends, fold a house and a cab, hang a grey bucket on the arm and glue it all up.

You need: Yellow: a 10 × 8 cm piece, a 4 × 5 cm piece and a 5 × 19 cm strip; a 15 × 6 cm black strip, a 3.5 cm grey square, scissors, glue. Hard, 15 steps, about 30 minutes.

Steps

  1. House: fold in half. Start with the big yellow piece, yellow side up. Fold the bottom half behind.
  2. House: slope the back. Fold the top-left corner a little way behind, so the back of the house slopes down.
  3. Arm: new sheet. Set the house aside. Take the long yellow strip, white side up, lying flat.
  4. Arm: fold in half. Fold the strip in half the long way, bottom edge up to the top edge.
  5. Arm: and in half again. Fold it in half the long way once more, so it is thick and yellow all over. The fold along the bottom is the underside of the arm.
  6. Arm: bend the elbow. Outside-reverse-fold the right part of the strip so it points back down: open the layers a little and wrap them around the outside along the slanted crease.
  7. Cab: new sheet. Set the arm aside. Take the small yellow piece for the cab, yellow side up, standing tall.
  8. Cab: windscreen. Fold the top-right corner down in front on a slant. The white triangle is the windscreen.
  9. Bucket: new sheet. Set the cab aside. Take the small grey square, grey side up.
  10. Bucket: fold the diagonal. Fold the top-left half behind along the diagonal, making a triangle. The long slanted edge is the open mouth of the bucket.
  11. Bucket: round the back. Fold the square corner at the bottom right a little way behind, so the back of the bucket is round.
  12. Track: new sheet. Set the bucket aside. Take the black strip for the track.
  13. Track: fold in half. Fold the top half behind, the long way.
  14. Track: round the ends. Cut all four corners round through both layers, in small snips, so both ends of the track are curved like a real crawler track.
  15. Build the digger. Glue the house on the track, the arm from the front of the house and the cab over the bottom of the arm. Glue the bucket behind the end of the arm.

Dig, dig, dig!

Draw the wheels in the track, a side window, a grille and the arm's ram. Scoop up some paper sand!

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