How-To & Education
How to Build a Pyramid Kite
(by 8 people)
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The Tetrahedral Kite: Easy to Make, Easy to Fly!
Alexander Graham Bell is well-known as the inventor of the telephone, but few people realize he also invented an early form of airplane! Well, not quite. It wasn't a plane -- a flat wing -- but a tetrahedron, a pyramid-like* structure with four sides. (Count 'em. The sides are shaped like triangles, but there's four triangles, not three!)
In 1907, five years after the Wright Brothers got their airplane airborne, Bell's tetrahedron kite, Cygnet II, flew to a height of 168 feet for 7 minutes with one passenger aboard. It was made of nearly 4,000 individual pyramid cells! It also had to be towed by a steamboat on a line, the way adventuresome waterskiiers can use a kite to get airborne today.
You don't need 4,000 cells to make a pyramid fly. You don't even need a sphinx. All you need is some paper or mylar, a few plastic drinking straws, glue and string.
*NOTE: I've noticed a lot of visitors to this page are Googling for "how to make a pyramid." Technically, tetrahedrons like my kite aren't really pyramids, because the bottom of an Egyptian or Mexican pyramid is a square and not another triangle. If you change my instructions at step #2 to wind up with four straws connected at the peak instead of three, making four triangles for the sides instead of three, you'll wind up with a pyramid. I'm not sure it would work as a kite, but it could work as a skeleton for school projects. To make it taller, shorten the straws that form the square on the bottom. To cover the sides, here's a stone wall texture you can load into a graphics program, copy and paste to fill a full sheet of paper, and print out.
What You'll Need to Build This Kite
Materials
- 24 plastic drinking straws
- spool of kitestring or kitchen string
- large sewing needle (not vital)
- strong, colorful tissue paper or mylar (Colored plastic wrap found in party stores works nicely, but tug on it to make sure it doesn't tear easily)
- rubber cement (more basic glue/tape works with tissue paper, but rubber cement works with everything)
Kite Books on Amazon
Easy-to-Make Decorative Kites: Step-by-Step Instructions for Nine Models from Around the World
Amazon Price: $4.95 (as of 05/17/2008)
Kite Flight: Complete, Easy-To-Follow Instructions for Making 40 Different Kites
Amazon Price: (as of 05/17/2008)
Kite Flight Complete, easy-to-follow instructions for making 40 different kites
Amazon Price: (as of 05/17/2008)
Kite Assembly: Part One
- String three plastic drinking straws together to form a triangle. The easiest way is to give your thread extra slack, use a heavy needle, and drop it down through one straw, letting gravity do the work for you. Tie the triangle's ends together securely, leaving as little slack as possible.
- Thread and tie on two more straws to form a second triangle, using one of the first three straws for one side of the triangle. Then tie one more straw between the outer corner of the two triangles to form the back of the pyramid. Again, don't tie the thread so tightly that the straws bend, but don't leave so much give that your pyramid flops. It should stand up on its own once you've got all six straws in place.
- Place your pyramid on your paper or wrap of choice. Trace or cut out a triangle about half an inch larger than the pyramid's base, nipping off the corners as shown. The shape is like the orange safety triangles on slow-moving vehicles. If this is an activity for children, you may want to prepare a cardboard pattern ahead of time which they can trace and copy. Repeat to get a second triangle.
- For each of two sides of the pyramid: Curl the edges of the paper triangle over and around the straws, then secure with rubber cement.
Kite Assembly: Part Two
5. Repeat steps 1-4, to create three more pyramids, each with two sides covered with paper.
6. Stack the four individual pyramids into one large pyramid: three on the bottom, one on top. Orient all of them in the same direction, so that, for instance, the papered sides on all of them are on the left and right. (They're like the wings of birds flying in formation. If they're facing different directions, the wind won't be able to pass through freely.)
7. When you've got all the pyramids arranged properly, tie together all the corners that touch, double and triple knotting, just to make sure.
8. Attatch your kitestring to one of the corners where two sides of paper meet, as shown in the diagram, and you're done!
9. Or, if you want to be ambitious, you can make three more 4-cell pyramids like this one and attach them together. Ever heard of fractals? You can just keep repeating the same pattern, larger and larger, to make the Great Pyramid!
Cute Video on Kitemaking for Kids
Making and Flying Kites with Paulie
Paulie Berard of Rhode Island shows some school kids how to make their own kites. From the PBS Curious George show in 2006.
Runtime: 1:28
5190 views
1 Comments:
Flying Your Kite
If you have the bad habit of flying kites in very strong winds, which tends to make them crash, you may want to drop some thin supports down the insides of the straws to keep them from buckling. I suspect thin shish kabob stakes would work well. I just jam a thin twig inside if one of the straws bends.
You can also make this kite out of fancier materials, of course; the shape is the crucial part. Enjoy!
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How to Make and Fly a Sled Kite
Planet Parent: How to Fly a Kite!
Gary Mark teaches children how to make their own sled kite. Featuring the Koch Family of Toronto.
Runtime: 4:44
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2 Comments:
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ArtByLinda
Okay, I'm a fan. This really is a fantastic site on kites. I love the video's with the children. I think you put a lot of hard work into sharing your passion with the world! 5 stars and a lensroll to my All About Kites Posted May 12, 2008 |
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kellywissink
Thanks for a great idea! We added your lens to our new Homeschooling and Beyond lens. 5 Stars! Posted April 28, 2008 |
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poddys
Yet another 5 ***** rating from me for a great lens. I would love to build one of these, they are so much fun. Posted April 18, 2008 |
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Rock_The_Ice
In response to your forum thread... Now it's had 5 ratings! =P Posted April 18, 2008 |
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Stephene
i like your lense very much.. i hv bookmarked this lense and joined your fan club.. (^o^) Posted March 16, 2008 |
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Greekgeek
Graduate student with MAs in classics and mythological studies currently working on a PhD -- what a mouthful! -- I try to be a bard and storyteller for the modern wo...
moreWhat's here
- What You'll Need to Build This Kite
- Kite Books on Amazon
- Kite Assembly: Part One
- Kite Assembly: Part Two
- Cute Video on Kitemaking for Kids
- More...
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