Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. One uncut square of paper can, in the hands of an origami artist, be folded into a bird, a frog, a sailboat, or a Japanese samurai helmet beetle.

When I was 8 years old, my mom taught me how to make my first origami crane. It was a complicated process for both of us since it was our first attempt. The drawn figures looked easy enough to fold, ...