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One of Shafer's signature pieces is the "flasher." The flasher hat below folds up instantly to a cylinder no bigger than a roll of toilet paper. In fact, some of Shafer's flashers fold up by themselves if you let go of them. According to Shafer, he designed the first flasher with Christopher Palmer, after Palmer saw a rose by a legendary Japanese origamist, Toshikazu Kawasaki. The two realized they could use Kawasaki's system of pleats to make a model that could grow or shrink. Shafer estimates that he has designed about thirty-five different flashers, and he even owes his college degree to them. As a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, he majored in mathematics because "it was the most origami-like of the majors," and he presented a senior seminar on flashers. Even his professors were baffled, Shafer recalls. "I taught them how to fold a flasher," Shafer says. "I was practically having to fold it for them, because they had the instructions in front of them but they couldn't follow them. That was quite a turnaround, you know—you have all those geniuses, and they can't even fold the basic flasher!" Click here for a larger image of Shafer's Flasher Hat.
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