Fold with Nara

My role
Team lead: the software, the tech side and the presentation.
Year
2026
Type
Interactive booth, iPad app
Status
Demo built
The Fold with Nara booth: a pale wooden stand holds an iPad showing “You folded Mt. Fuji!” above a folding tray, with a blue and white paper Mt. Fuji standing on it

The booth after a fold: the iPad says “You folded Mt. Fuji!” and the paper model sits on the tray.

Status
Presented with a working demo, fall 2026. The booth has no camera yet.
Next
Add a camera, and improve the overall design.

Duolingo set our Innovators Forum class a challenge. Our answer is Fold with Nara: a booth where an iPad app, with Nara the deer, takes you through folding an origami model. I led the team and created the software, the tech side and the presentation.

The brief

Duolingo came to our Innovators Forum class at the Iovine and Young Academy and set a challenge. Our team answered it with Fold with Nara. I led the team.

The prompt asked for a new character, a place, and a 10-question lesson on a part of Japanese culture.

Meet Nara

Nara is a new Duolingo character: a sika deer, 鹿 (shika), from Nara Park, where the deer bow to visitors. Bowing is her signature move, and it’s part of the lesson.

She’s built only from the four shapes in Duolingo’s character guide: rounded squares, circles, rounded triangles and semicircles.

Miss a question once and she points to the clue. Miss it again and she explains the answer and brings it back in the review round. There are no hearts to lose and no lockout.

  1. Hello

  2. New question

  3. First miss

    Points to the clue

  4. Second miss

    Explains, then reviews it

  5. Right answer

  6. Fold unlocked

  7. The end

Nara has an expression for every moment. Every pose reuses the same parts, drawn from the team’s character geometry.

Why origami

Origami is a Japanese art you learn by doing, and it leaves you with something to take home. In one study, people valued origami they folded almost five times more than origami a stranger folded.

The booth

The full design is a free pop-up tent at events. Kiosks line its walls, one visitor at each, and finished origami hangs overhead. Each kiosk has a touchscreen with Nara, a printer for the paper, and a camera and projector over the folding ledge.

For the pitch we built a desk-size version: a wooden stand holds an iPad above a folding tray, with a projector clipped to the top. The iPad runs the app I built.

Nara, a cartoon deer, greets you on the start screen. When you finish a model, the app names it in Japanese, here 富士山 (Fujisan), shows your XP and the questions you answered, and asks whether you’ll take it home or hang it in the tent.

The booth’s iPad on its start screen: Nara, a cartoon deer, waves above the words “Fold with Nara” and a green “Tap to start” button

The start screen, with Nara the deer.

The lesson

A visit is a ten-question walk around Nara Park. Saying hello, こんにちは (konnichiwa), lights up the first fold right away; after that, every four right answers light up the next one. The projector draws each fold on your paper.

I wrote the presentation as a web app, and it runs the booth: the iPad screen and the projector follow the slides over the same Wi-Fi, and the projector’s fold lines are lined up to the sheet of paper by hand.

The demo

We showed it as a presentation with the booth: the projector, the interactive iPad and a working demo. I made the presentation.

The five-person team at the demo in a USC classroom, each holding up a folded paper Mt. Fuji, with the booth in front of them

Our team at the demo, each with a folded Mt. Fuji.

Try it

The mini booth’s kiosk, as a demo you can tap through: say hi to Nara, choose a fold, then answer your way around Nara Park as each right answer folds your Mt. Fuji. It runs on the presentation’s own code.

Fold with Nara

(Open it full screen)

Facts

My role
Led the team; created the software, the tech side and the presentation
Where
Innovators Forum, a USC Iovine and Young Academy class, fall 2026
Brief
A challenge set by Duolingo
Character
Nara, a sika deer from Nara Park
The booth
A projector, an interactive iPad and a working demo
Status
Presented with a demo; no camera yet