Meet Team Sky Pirate!~
Shawn Gwyn & yours truly, Allison Schwein
I can't tell you how many times I've been put in the position to build a functional kite to save my grade...okay, one. But you didn't hear it from me...
This assignment for Teambuilding in Technology split the class into groups with that objective: build a kite - without buying one or using a kit - that is functional and flyable. Our kite was constructed of the following: recycled string and spine from a broken kite, plastic party table cloth, stickers, and colored duct tape. We also drew a rather dashing rainbow skull and cross bones with colored Sharpies. All this for under ten bucks!! - and we got to keep the sharpies and kite, so you know, for an artist and experienced flyer like ourselves, win/win.
Objective 2: flying. Did it really fly? That's for the class to decide. See, the term fly gets thrown around a lot these days, who among us can say for sure? Such is the prisoner's dilemma. If just one member of the class says a kite didn't fly, even if all the others attest it did, it gets graded in the negative. We test flew the kite the night of its construction and it flew beautifully, but the day we flew it as a class was a little less than spectacular. Still, true to our words everyone agreed everyone's kite flew. Since we're all in the same boat anyway it'd be silly not to in this case, but I don't think this is the last we've seen of our prisoner's dilemma.
More on the process and working as a team, we split the cost of the supplies and effort. I did the formal research beforehand but Shawn had flown kites more than me so he had the experience to contribute. He supplied the kite's spine and string and stickers and we split the funding for the other supplies. When making the kite itself we first folded the skin material (for thickness and durability when flying) as many times as it could and put the spine on it. We used a ruler and traced straight lines around the spine for the shape of the kite. We taped the edges together so they stayed put and combined experience with printed instructions in fastening the spine in place and threading the string through. All n' all I'd say we were not only a team, but THE BEST team! Working with Shawn was fun, awesome, and easy. Now, for all you aspiring kite builders, there were A LOT of kite building tutorials online, but omg, for something fun and simple, I wouldn't recommend it. In my experience get an awesome friend, do a bit of forethought, and just dive in.
...and now I say...
GO FLY A KITE!~
No comments:
Post a Comment