The Mathematics of Flying

One of the earliest attempts to fly was with the use of a kite; in the year 1894 a man named Hargrave was lifted from the ground by a group of four cellular kites; As many of you know Ben Franklin used kites to help in his study of lightening. Kites have been used during wars to lift men high enough to see across a battle field and spy on the enemy. For the third trimester we will build our own kites to help us study the math of flying. The first step in our project is to study the different types of kites and pick one that you think you would like to make.The links to the right will bring you to pages that have articles on the history of kites, the different types of kites and how kites are made; your challenge today is to read each page and post a comment to me about which type of kite you would like to make and why.