Design, build and test hundreds of different kites

Soar to new heights with a kite you design and build yourself! Using a simple and unique connector system, your colorful kite sails can be configured in hundreds of ways to create a wide variety of kites.

Astonish your friends, fellow kite flyers and the spectators on the kite field with your wild and original constructions. Plan, build and test kites again and again to determine which design is best. Experiment with how different bridle configurations affect the stability and maneuverability of your kite.

Learn about lift, drag, Bernoulli’s principle, and the physics and history of flying kites. Build a kite ferry and a kite glider. Calculate how high your kite is flying, and determine the air temperature way up there.

A patented connector system is used to attach kite sails together. The design is elegant in its simplicity and flexibility. The same hub pieces are used to attach cross spars to the sails and to attach the sails together. Elastic straps fit tightly around the hub connectors at the ends of the sails in order to keep the kite together, even in strong breezes.

Hub connector keeps cross spars attached to kite sail.

Kite sails are attached together with rods, hubs and elastic straps.

The experiment manual will tell you how the kite sails fit together and will give you some ideas for simple kites you can build. After you have built those, you can brainstorm up your own kite designs, build them and test them!

Share your kite designs!

Send us photos of the kites you have built and we will post them in our new Kite Gallery. Email images of your designs in jpeg format to this email address and tell us what did or did not work about the design and what you learned from testing it. Also, explain how the kite is assembled if it is not obvious from the photos.

Experiment Manual

A 32-page full-color Experiment Manual guides aspiring kite engineers through kite assembly methods and nine experiments.