Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. One uncut square of paper can, in the hands of an origami artist, be folded into a bird, a frog, a sailboat, or a Japanese samurai helmet beetle.

Sara Goheen, a junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, often folds placemats or straw wrappers into interesting shapes while she’s waiting at a restaurant for the food to arrive. “It’s ...