This is my design of a kite. From very young age, I have been fascinated with kite-making. When I was a young teenager, I build a kite with my uncle that was 6 feet tall. Of course traditional kite making processes are quite understood. But aerodynamics is something which is highly fascinating and easily accessible as a study to anyone who wants to build a kite. Below you can see my initial 3-D renderings of the kite.
Some of the parameters that were involved are the use of tetrahedral forms in a fractal array. The foundation of my design was loosely based on crystallography, and the optical illusion of a crystal. I wanted to try to create a kite that would disappear in the sky.
Here you can see the initial design of the kite in full model, compared to a crystal in an inverted image.
Here you see the second design, which moved more towards function, and natural elements of design in-flight, and moved away from the initial ideas of optical illusion.
Above and on the left you can see my experimentation with different types of joint making. On the right you can see all of the free bubble tea straws that I collected from a local bubble tea shop, as they were being disinfected.
Above is the final design of the kite, which utilized creative building techniques in the joints and fastenings which held the clear plastic sheets to the bubble tea straws. Below you can see two images of me flying the kite at the Beaches in Toronto (as evidence that it worked).
