We Can All Just Go Fly A Kite!

Ah, Physics! I'm in college and I am required to make a kite from anything and fly it? Besides this being the best assignment ever, it was a great process to see come together. My partner Paige and I, first had the idea to fly a kite with fire like a lantern kite you see in movies like "Tangled." Obviously an open flame on campus had to be cleared by the head of the IT department and when I mentioned the words "fire extinguisher" they promptly said no, which was fine because we had assembled other ideas and plans just in case we didn't get the okay from school.

Researching kites I found that the more materials you use the less likely it is to fly. We wanted to keep the design simple, but with one goal......it has to fly and we want the full 10 points. Browsing YouTube, believe it or not the comments at the bottom of the videos were extremely helpful! You can watch a 10 minute video of someone making a kite, but they don't show it flying, so reading the majority of the comments say "Yeah, this didn't fly" or "Does it even Fly???" was an easy give away that the design might not have been a good one.

I found a sled kite video that was very simple and at the beginning and ending of the video there was proof that his design flew, and the comments were supportive and informative opposed to the other videos. I went ahead and gathered the materials which were found around the house and went in Thursday and built the kite, which would become Cup!

The group aspect of this project worked, but almost too well. All of the groups weren't taking this as a competition, we used this time to help and aid each other because we all had the same goal. What I learned from this was, compromise! Paige and I knew that the lantern was probably a long shot but we shot for the stars, but all we needed was to be in the sky.......or rather the kite be in the sky.....flying, so we went with what was simple and doable and made it our own.

I feel like if all of us would of made one kite it would have been better. I understood the assignment but it was awesome how it transcended the groups because we have already become close as a team and it was evident during the kite building process on Thursday. When someone was getting frustrated, someone was always there to lend a hand. I can't wait to see what we all accomplish together with KIB.