How to Make a Sonobe Unit

Last Updated: March 13, 2021

The sonobe unit is the base of modular origami. You can make a wide variety of geometrical shapes just by putting these little Sonobe units together. Some designs call for less than five units, while some call for more than a hundred! Fortunately, Sonobe units are easy to make, especially with the instructions and pictures below.

Steps

1
Take your square piece of paper with the white side up if you are using origami paper with one colored side.
2
Fold the paper in half vertically.

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3
Unfold the paper so you have a crease going down the middle.
4
Using the middle crease as a guide, fold the two sides parallel to the middle crease and fold them into the center. This will make the paper fold into fourths.
5
Unfold the paper once again.
6
Take the section on the left and fold it over.
7
Fold from the bottom left corner to the crease parallel to the right side of the paper. See image for further guidance.
8
Unfold all of the paper. There should now be a couple of diagonal creases, don't worry, this will make the process easier for later steps.
9
Turn the paper 180 degrees so that the diagonal creases are on the "top" of the paper.
10
Repeat steps 6 & 7 but do not unfold.
11
Fold the right flap over.
12
Turn the paper 180 degrees, then take the bottom left corner and tuck it under the right flap.
13
Turn the almost-finished unit over. Then fold in the extending parts.
14
Fold the two extending points (acute angles) to the corners (obtuse angles) in which they meet the rectangular part.
- At this point, you may be done, but there are other ways to fold the unit so you can make different polyhedrons.
  - Do not add any further creases to create a cube.
  - Add a mountain crease through the middle to make a hexahedron.
  - Add a valley fold through the middle to make more complex polyhedrons such as an icosahedron, or even more complicated things.
15
Done!

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Warnings

Beware of paper cuts!

Thanks!
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Be patient, you don't have to finish this in a day. (although one unit only takes 3 minutes to make)

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