fold sankha cooray
paper engineering · craft & mechanism

Paper, cut and
folded into mechanism.

A working space for hand-built objects — paper engineering, low-cost prototyping, and the small mechanical ideas that fall out of folding things at the desk.

Singapore workshop hobby turned innovation Stakco lives here
01

About

I have a long-running soft spot for paper, scissors, and folded mechanism. Most evenings end with a sketch, a print-out, a few cuts, and the question can this hinge?.

The work spans paper engineering, low-cost prototyping, and quietly mechanical assemblies — pieces that move, snap, or unfold the way a small machine should.

Some of these experiments stayed as one-off objects. One of them — Stakco — kept going, through iterations, exhibitions, and production runs. That is the flagship and the reason this page exists.

Beyond Stakco, this page collects the smaller paper-craft work: the prototypes that didn't grow up, but were too good to throw away.

02

Stakco

flagship

The longest-running paper-engineering project — a folded, stackable object that grew from a desk experiment into a multi-prototype, multi-exhibition platform.

flagship · paper engineering

Stakco

multiple prototypes · exhibitions · production

Stakco started as a paper-engineering experiment and grew into a family of objects that sit at the intersection of craft, mechanism, and play. Across iterations it has been a watch, a light, a puzzle, and a research artefact for academic venues.

The thread is the same throughout: a small folded structure, hand-buildable, designed for stacking and configuration — a piece of paper that knows what it wants to be.

Stakco Watch Stakco Light Stakco Play AWWA collaboration UIST submission Prototypes for Humanity
dedicated site coming · play.stakcos.com
03

More Paper Work

Smaller pieces — sketches, prototypes, single-evening experiments. Some led to Stakco. Others are happy to stay one-offs.

prototype

Folded mechanisms

desk experiments

Hinges, snap-fits, and tension structures built from single sheets — the vocabulary that eventually fed into Stakco.

photos to be added
prototype

Pop-up & kirigami pieces

paper craft

Cards, scenes, and pop-up structures — the playful end of paper engineering.

photos to be added
prototype

Light enclosures

prototype lighting

Paper as a lampshade material — diffusing, shadow-casting, and the ergonomics of a switch you can fold.

photos to be added
future

Open slot

to be added

New paper experiments will land here as they earn a write-up — a line drawing, a few photos, what worked, what tore.

to be added
04

Selected Projects

Print-and-paper tooling that grew out of this lens — small utilities that turn a folder of art into something you can cut, print, or scan. Both are still bench-side, not yet on a public subdomain.

puzzle-composer preview
tool · python

Puzzle Composer

PyMuPDF · A4 print layout

Lays out album photos at true physical scale — each scaled into a 205 mm square on A4 and overlaid with the layers of an octagon puzzle-cutting PDF template, rendered 1:1 in real millimetres.

in the lab
q-hero preview
tool · print + app

Q-Hero

printable code sheet · Android

A print-and-scan superhero game — an A4 sheet of QR-style codes that a companion Android app reads to assemble mix-and-match hero characters from interchangeable face and body art.

in the lab
05

How I Work

A handful of habits the paper has taught me. Mostly: cheap materials, fast iterations, and the willingness to throw a piece away the moment it stops earning its keep.

Cut before you commit
Print, cut, fold. A failed prototype is cheaper than a CAD mistake.
Single-sheet first
If it can be made from one sheet, it should be. Constraint clarifies the geometry.
Stackable / nestable
Objects that stack ship flat, store small, and feel intentional in the hand.
Tension over glue
Where possible, the paper holds itself. Glue is a last resort, not a design.
Iterate every evening
Twenty mediocre versions beats two perfect ones on paper.
From hobby to platform
A craft hobby earns research weight when it can travel — Stakco proved that for me.

Build photos, fold diagrams, and downloadable patterns will be added here as each piece is documented.

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Get in touch

Have a project, a question, or just want to say hello? Drop a note below and it'll reach me directly.