Paper Demonstrations

Folded Chiral Paper Structures

Under development. Patterns containing brief instructions on construction and use of these folded paper structures can be downloaded as PDF files from the Internet at: http://bradley.bradley.edu/~campbell/chiralpapersprings.pdf. You are welcome to contact Dean Campbell (http://bradley.bradley.edu/~campbell/campbell@bumail.bradley.edu) to give him feedback on use of this template.

Chemical Cootie Catchers

Patterns containing brief instructions on construction and use of these folded paper structures can be downloaded as PDF files from the Internet at: http://bradley.bradley.edu/~campbell/chemcootiecatchers.html.

 

D. J. Campbell, K. C. Campbell, K. M. Campbell, "Chemical ‘Fortune Tellers’ or ‘Cootie-Catchers’", Chem13 News, March, 2011, 8-9.

Chemical Paper Snowflake Cutouts

 

This paper describes the use of flat paper cutouts with six-fold symmetry for modeling layers of atoms within solid structures. Stacking the cutouts in specific ways illustrates how the layers of the atoms are stacked in the solids. Additionally, these cutouts can be used to demonstrate types of deformation in metals, atomic force microscopy, and carbon nanostructures. These paper lattices can be used on an overhead projector for demonstration to an entire class, or they can be constructed and studied on individual bases by students. K. F. Robinson, P. N. Nguyen, N. Applegren, D. J. Campbell, “Illustrating Close-Packed and Graphite Structures with Paper Snowflake Cutouts” The Chemical Educator, 2007, 12,163-166.

Poisson's Ratio Cutouts Flat, flexible lattices can be used to illustrate Poisson’s ratios of materials. These lattices can be produced from ordinary sheets of paper.
D. J. Campbell, M. K. Querns, "Using Paper Cutouts to Illustrate Poisson's Ratio."  J. Chem. Educ., 2002, 79, 76.

Graphite Cleavage to Graphene Demonstrated with a Deck of Cards

"When a pencil makes a mark on paper, tiny sheets of clay and graphite are rubbed from the pencil “lead” onto the paper fibers.  Recently, scientists have repeatedly split stacked layers of graphite apart (like cutting a deck of cards) to isolate single-atom sheets of graphite.  These single sheets, called graphene, have thicknesses of only a third of a nanometer  – much thinner than the smallest piece of pencil dust." See: http://www.nano.utexas.edu/resources/nano-at-home/.