For our final project in Space Studio we were assigned to construct and design a kite. Of course with step-by-step directions. 

Knowing that Wayne State is sometimes a wind tunnel, I needed to make sure I picked a kite that could handle high winds. I picked the Dowel Rokkaku Kite. It was large, intriguing and could handle high winds. Although, I wish I would have looked at the directions a bit more before making a final decision. 

I'm not quite sure where I got the idea but I wanted to infuse feathers between two pieces of plastic sheeting for my design. My professor suggested I use an iron to fuse the two pieces together. Thing is, I don't own an iron and didn't feel like spending money on it. I resorted to my hair dryer. I knew it would work the same way and I felt that I would have more control with it. I never dry my hair (because it's really bad for your hair) and haven't in over a year. Finally I had a reason to use my hair dryer!

I traced the design using a thick black sharpie onto the plastic sheeting and laid it flat on the table. I didn't realize how large four feet was...

I wanted to include a variety of colored feathers in my design. I played with the feathers moving them around trying to find a proper place for them. I picked through the bags searching for the best and fluffiest feathers. I literally spent two hours doing this. I wasn't pleased with the variety of colors. If I would've had green, black and orange I feel that I could've made it work. 

When I was playing around with my feathers, the blues and reds that really intrigued me. Even when I was plucking through the bag of feathers. The blue especially caught my eye and I couldn't take my eye off of it. Lately I've been digging royal blue and red together...

A classmate of mine who always happens to come in whenever I'm in suggested to put a break in the pattern by adding pink. Funny thing is, I did that before she even came. Reason why I didn't like it then was because I had teal feathers in the pattern too. I liked how it turned out. 

Sadly I was unable to get any photos of me attempting to fly my kite. One of the dowels snapped in half within a few seconds of air time. I was pretty bummed actually. I spent A LOT of time building this kite. I didn't even mention the second day I came in to finish my kite...let's just say it was very frustrating. And of course when we arrived on the field my professor took a look at my kite and told me I put the string in the wrong places. Great I thought. I spent a good time in the freezing cold fixing the strings so it had a better chance of flying. As mentioned before, I did get it to fly...for a little bit. There was a lot of taping and mending the kite on the field. Luckily David showed up and helped me out with it. I didn't want to give up, I was going to make it fly one more time. Which I did, but only for a few seconds before it plumaged to the ground. Even after re-taping the dowels, re-doing the strings and readjusting the fly-line it wouldn't fly. My professor knew it was cold and we had already been out there for a long time and he told us that we could go. If he hadn't of told me to go I probably would have been out there FOREVER trying to make the damn thing fly. I know if I had built it better, it would have flown.

Here you can see exactly where the dowels snapped. 

Fortunately this kite wasn't being graded. It was more of a end-of-the-year-fun-project sort of thing. I had fun, but I also hated building this stupid thing. I should have picked a different kite to build to be honest. I probably would have had more fun if it were a smaller and easier kite to construct. But I didn't completely hate the project, it was fun for the most part and a nice way to end Space Studio.