Who: Miles Wu, 14
Where: New York, New York
Miles Wu has made origami art, including birds and insects, for fun for years. But after hearing about devastating wildfires in California in 2025, he was determined to use the Japanese art of paper folding to help people in need. He envisioned origami-based pop-up shelters that could be used in emergencies.
Miles began testing the strength of a fold known as Miura-ori (mee-oo-rah-o-ree). The zigzag fold is strong and easily expands and collapses. The teen created dozens of versions of the fold, experimenting with different heights, widths, and angles. Then he placed weights on the versions to see how much they could bear.
“The strongest could hold 10,000 times its weight,” Miles says. “That’s the equivalent of a taxi carrying over 4,000 elephants.”
Last fall, Miles won $25,000 for his project from the Society for Science. But his focus is still on disaster relief. “I hope this could be developed into shelters that collapse really small and are then easily transported to emergency sites,” he says.
—Chrisanne Grisé