Because the Origami didn't work
We gave you dancing lessons
Because the dancing lessons made you bored
We bought you a guitar

Because you said it made your fingers sore
We found you a pony
Because the pony broke your leg and ran away
We got you drums

But the drums annoyed our neighbours so
We gave you cooking lessons
And the cooking lessons made you fat
We bought you running shoes

If you hear this
Please
We love you Tommy
We know it never was
About Origami

Because you took the shoes and ran away
We gave them your description
Now we haven't heard a thing in weeks

Because we don't know where you are
We're putting out this song
Because we think that you might hear
And know where you belong
So what did we do wrong?

If you hear this
Please
We love you Tommy
Please come home we've
Left your room
Exactly
Exactly

And if you ever hear this song
Know we send our love
Take your origami skills
And make a paper dove
Send a message home
We promise not to teach you
We don't care what you've done
We hope that this will reach you..

If you hear this,
Please
We love you Tommy
We won't ask you
Anything
We won't be angry

Amazingly *skillful origami modeling. He should have used temperature sensitive inks so it could actually change colors instead of just using different colored lights.
*quality modeling

Your video, amazing origami skills, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, tiny origami robot by MIT, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

not a robot then, it really is origami with a tiny magnet, moved my coils around it.

lame!

More info http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/origami-robot-folds-itself-up-does-cool-stuff-dissolves-into-nothing

I'm a Comp Sci grad who spent a great deal of time doing 3D coding so yes, I've got some idea what is involved here.

Best case scenario here is you have to track down an existing 3-D model that matches the object you want to manipulate close enough to do well. You also need that model's texturing to match close enough to look good. They don't clearly show how you map that model to a portion of your 2d image, but if they have made that relatively simple it is the 'big deal' portion they are showing off because that is very hard, and most likely has some finicky bits to it.

Also, the first bit of finding a good matching 3-d model is the killer. Armed with a well matched 3-D model, something like Blender already let you do this relatively easily. Finding that model is the hard part and for anything living it's simply not going to exist in 90% of cases, so your gonna just not do it, or do what the movie guys are already doing and build your own model.

I'm not saying there's not good work here, but I am sceptical of the fact that the real nuts and bolts of what would make this a 'big deal'(the UI mapping) isn't being shown. Furthermore, the animated origami clinches my skepticism. Sorry, but 3-D animation of 'some object' in your 2d image has NOT been made easy or IMHO been changed at all by their product. 100% of the effort there is the 3-D animation of the object, which you still have to get somebody to do artistically, full stop.

Thought this might interest you if you haven't already seen it.
http://videosift.com/video/Because-the-Origami-8in8#comment-1744560

All things regarding the making of the video.
http://benjacobson.co.uk/origami_music_video/

and this from Amanda Palmer
http://music.amandapalmer.net/track/because-the-origami

Because the Origami - 8in8 has been added as a related post - related requested by Lilithia on that post.

Because the Origami - 8in8 has been added as a related post - related requested by Lilithia on that post.

I kept thinking the whole song- 'They probably should have stuck with origami until it worked instead of forcing things on their daughter and rewarding her for quitting them when things got difficult.'...then she ran away, quitting the family, and I felt bad for the parents too.
Maybe it's a good thing I'm not a parent.

Beautifully sad song (stupid onions). I so am interested to know how people interpret the meaning of the lyrics. Some of the comments here i found interesting http://amandapalmer.net/blog/because-the-origami/

Parenting ain't always easy.

This is how Gaff from Blade Runner was taught his origami skills....from a loving father

Hmm... now you've made me curious too. I have found a few interesting pages, but nothing specifically about frog vision apart from mentions that it's sensitive.

• How Stuff Works has a How frogs work article.
  
• The Whole Frog Project provides a virtual frog for high school biology students, based on MRI data, mechanical sectioning, and some software to allow visualising of the anatomical structures of the intact animal.
  
• The UW Sea grant site has a frogs page with resources for kids + teachers that has an origami frog (among other things).
  

I'm not quite as sure about the single photon claim. I found a Physicsworld.com article from September 2012 talking about using a single rod cell from a frog eye being used as an extremely sensitive detector which is able to detect a single photon, but according to the original Usenet Physics FAQ (I cite an updated version hosted at math.ucr.edu) human retinas can also respond to a single photon, but have a neural filter to block the signal unless 5 to 9 photons arrive within less than 100 ms.

References

Julie Schnapf, "How Photoreceptors Respond to Light", Scientific American, April 1987

S. Hecht, S. Schlaer and M.H. Pirenne, "Energy, Quanta and vision." Journal of the Optical Society of America, 38, 196-208 (1942)

D.A. Baylor, T.D. Lamb, K.W. Yau, "Response of retinal rods to single photons." Journal of Physiology, Lond. 288, 613-634 (1979)