Paper mechatronics: A material and intellectual shift in educational technology

Educational paper crafts have an unfortunate reputation as "less than serious" intellectual enterprises, suited primarily for younger children. Over the past decade, the technological groundwork has been laid for a radical revision of this judgment: paper can now serve as the material substrate for a rich, challenging, aesthetically appealing branch of engineering education. This paper describes the notion of paper mechatronics as a multidisciplinary approach to paper-based engineering projects. We discuss the technological innovations that have made paper mechatronics viable; the remarkable range of potential projects and curricular materials that this approach can accommodate; and we illustrate the possibilities of paper mechatronics through several working projects created in our lab.