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Weekly Update: Week 7

Going into lab this week we had just about every big decision made. We knew the shape of the kite, a slightly modified delta kite with a dihedral angle, the material of the frame, bamboo skewers split in half down the vertical center, and the material of the sail, thin  plastic from typical grocery bag. The only thing we still needed to do was figure out how to attach a line and make it user friendly.

The challenge we faced here was that the sail is attached to the bottom of our kite. This makes attaching a line to the frame very difficult. To achieve this we would have to poke holes in the sail to send the line through. However, if the line were to move during flight, it could rip the sail more, thus decreasing the kite's overall flight.

Through testing we found that a single string attached directly to the kite did not offer the best stability. We also found that, for best results, the string should be attached slightly in front of (closer to nose) the center of gravity of the kite. If the string is attached too close to the nose, when the string is pulled it tends to fly straight back at the flier.  We tested several times to find the perfect placement.

Through further testing, we found that attaching a shorter string to the kite frame in two spots, close to nose and close to tail, and then attaching the line to that gives the best results. The kite stays in the air fairly easily and is easy to control.

To battle the issue of the sail ripping, we reinforced the sail with tape over the holes made by the string. 

Figure 1 shows how the line was attached to the kite.
Figure 1: Attachment of line to kite

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