Weekly Update: Week 1

During week one groups were formed. As a group we chose to design and build a kite. After making this decision we had to discuss how to approach the project. We decided to model the kite after a flying bird. The overall shape will have a long center support and sides resembling open wings. This structure should provided stability due to its symmetric shape. The picture below is a sketch of our proposed kite structure.

Figure 1: Sketch of proposed kite structure

Sticking with the theme of nature, it is our goal to use natural and our recycled materials for the kite. The frame will be made of some kind of recycled wood and the sails will be made of recycled plastic bags.

Challenges we faced this week included forming a group and learning to communicate with group members. At the start of the meeting, everyone had a different idea. We had to compromise and come up with an idea that pleased everyone. Eventually we decided on the bird theme.

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Weekly Update: Week 4

This week was all about improving our prototype. The prototype that was made last week worked well enough but is was quite heavy. We decided to replace the chopsticks with bamboo skewers. The skewers are much lighter and happen to be a little bit longer. The basic frame of the kite stayed the same. However, the frame with the skewers did not require a second skewer to be put own the back of the center. To hold the frame together we decided to use hot glue for a stronger hold. To make the sail, we used the same type of plastic bag we used to make the sail for the previous prototype. We will start to test different plastics once we nail down a frame material and shape. This prototype worked much better than the original. It glided much better. This could be because it was much lighter. At one point we tried bending the frame. This did not work the way we had hoped. We undid it and restored the original shape. Another thing we worked on was attaching a string to the kite. At...

Weekly Update: Week 3

Today we started to build protoypes. We decided to use the lightest grocery bag we have for all protoypes until we decide on a final shape. We will then test that shape with several different plastics to find the one that works best. Our first protoype was very simple. It was a triangular shape with a long bar down the center, that goes past the triangle. The frame here was made of chopsticks. We then covered the triangle region with the plastic. The plastic was wrapped around the frame on the deges and taped down. This intial design was too front heavy. To combat this we added another chopstick to the back end of the middle stick. This prototype did not fly. Figure 1: Protoype 1 In the next prototype we decided to extend the triangular area. To do this we added and extra chopstick to each side and cut a bigger sail. Everything was attached the same way as in prototype one. Once again, the kite was front heavy. At this point we had run out of chopsticks. As a stand in...

Weekly Update: Week 8

This week we focused on getting quantitative data. Over the term we have evolved our prototype. This resulted in having four versions. We wanted to test each one to see if our final design is really the best. To start we collected glide ratios for each prototype. We were surprised to see that one of our early prototypes glided better and further than our current prototype. The early prototype glided 15 feet while the current prototype glided only 9 feet. Because of this finding we decided we wanted to test each with a line attached. Just because a kite glides well does not mean it has good control in the air. through this test we found that our current prototype offers more control in the air. We believe this is due to its dihedral shape. The other prototype is flat and had no way of correcting itself when it got off balance. The dihedral shape offered more lateral stability. Taking both tests into account we decided that the current prototype is in fact the better of the two proto...

grp070-11:Indoor Kite

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