How to make a transparent kite with text

This is a kite that's easy to build and fly. We designed it to carry text in a beautiful way, so that the letters appear to be floating against the sky. We believe it can be useful for carrying icons and messages in demonstrations, or plain old fun.

You will need:

- 1 piece of transparent plastic at least 3ft x 3ft (1x1 meter)
- 2 sticks the same length of your plastic (can be carved out of bamboo)
- box tape
- line - a thick cotton line will probably be enough, but you can play safe and get dacron or spectra lines

If you use a thin plastic, such as garbage bags, the kite will fly on lighter winds, but it will last less. We used a thicker (but not the thickest plastic), which here in Brazil is very used as table cover. But here's a picture of the garbage bag kite:

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Step 1: Cut the plastic

Here is how the plastic should be cut. The holes are very important for stability, but they can be cut in other shapes, like circles.

This "sled kite" was patented by William A. Allison. Luckily for us, his patent expired a long time ago. Check other kite patents on this beautiful blog.

bobzjr says: May 21, 2012. 9:24 AM

Cool idea - I never thought of this. Being a student of typography - this is a whole new "canvas". I wonder if sending a kite up with LEDs shining on the kite would work? Aiming LEDs on the kite withought drawing attention to the LEDs themselves might be a challenge. Just a half-cooked thought.

brunovianna (author) says: May 22, 2012. 10:20 AM

hey bob, we did a few kites with led., they work great. it is a good idea to use them for text

http://www.eletropipas.blogspot.com.br/2010/06/agua-viva-2-colocamos-o-leds-azuis-no.html
http://www.eletropipas.blogspot.com.br/2010/05/fibra-otica-de-arranjo-floral-chines.html
http://www.eletropipas.blogspot.com.br/2010/05/olho-de-led.html

also, if you enjoy the text canvas experiences, check this out:
http://vimeo.com/16793009

bobzjr says: May 26, 2012. 1:00 PM

Wow those look really cool. I did especially like the last one. How were they doing that text one? Was it an array of leds with some sort of controller?

Thanks for showimg me that stuff!

brunovianna (author) says: May 29, 2012. 6:50 AM

that was a video projector pointed at the empty sky, showing a powerpoint slide with white letters on a black background. then we flew white kites over the projector. simple as that!

bobzjr says: May 21, 2012. 9:26 AM

My post regarding LEDs - would be in reference to using it at night.