Connect and Combine

Assignment 4- Prepared for the class

A Crash Course in Creativity by

Neeraj Kulkarni

Kite flying

• I used to love flying kites growing up as a kid in India

• The official kite season extends for 3 months in India beginning in the second week of January

• We have kites available in variety of shapes and sizes with such beautiful designs

• I wanted to pass on this tradition to my son. Unfortunately in Charlottesville, VA we have absolutely no store which keeps any kites.

• So what do I do? My engineering design classes came in handy…… 2

The Hanging Kite

3

• Pull down the cross wire of the hanger to make a frame without breaking it.

• Stretch a long string (or a spool of nylon cord) across the frame in a zig-zag fashion so that it is tightly wound along the frame. This maintains the shape of the frame

• Secure the string to the hook. Loop the string tightly and leave enough string for you to use to swirl it around. Your Kite is ready!!

Cloth Hanger Long String

* Using shapes in power point can be painful

but you smart folks get the idea

String

What I like about this kite

4

• Simplicity of concept, design and creation

• You can get fancy with different shapes , styles and colors of hangers and threads. The competition could be around who gets the maximum votes for concept, creativity, design and function (aerodynamic, ease to swirl etc.)

• This one does not break easily and it’s extremely cheap to create. Can you beat that Return on Investment? How much pocket money did you have to spend as a kid on buying kites when you bought the actual ones?

• Last but not the least the joy of passing on a great tradition to my son. I love it when I see him happily running around the yard swirling it around . Granted it does not fly high as a paper kite would but it still makes this same “whoosh” sound as he runs around reminding me of my childhood days