Building a 10 minute paper kite

What could be more fun that flying a kite? What about flying one that you built yourself, with ordinary materials that you’ve almost certainly got around your home.

We made a simple kite today out of one 8.5X11″ piece of paper, some tape, a plastic straw, and a small plastic shopping bag. Also needed was a string. We used a kite string from a free kite that was given to us on Canada day. That kite was never able to stay off the ground for more than 3 seconds, and when it did get up momentarily, it immediately dive bombed the person flying it. So, it was no big loss to cut the string for our paper kite experiment.

Here are the directions and a pattern, if you want to try it yourself.

download the kite pattern in PDF format

First, print the pattern onto a letter size piece of paper (or not, if you think you can approximate the folds shown above without the pattern).

Next, you’ll want to color one side. Or both. If you only color one side, that’ll be the bottom of your kite, since only birds and clouds ever get a good look at the top.

Next fold your page down the middle line. Then fold the other two lines so that your kite looks a little like a paper airplane.

Tape a drinking straw (we only had the bendy type in the house, and it still worked fine) securely to to top of the widest part of the kite. You can tape the two sides of the kite together too, if you want to. It doesn’t seem to affect the stability as long as you don’t overdo it on the tape.

Cut out a narrow strip out of your plastic grocery bag, and tape it to the back of your kite for a tail. About a foot and a half long was all we found it needed.

Poke a small hole through the dots on the bottom of the kite, and tie your string there. Reinforce with a little tape.

Then, all that’s left is to take it outside and give it a try!

 

Running the kite and materials through NASA’s KiteModeler shows that it is stable enough to even carry a small payload (around 10 grams), though it would not fly at all on an average day on Mars.

Tags: paper kite, craft, kite craft, make a kite

Test Your Child's Toys for
Lead Using Lead Inspector
Lead Test Kits! Click Here