Triforce Kite
Sergej Bekauv designed and printed this DIY tetrahedral kite named the "Triforce Kite".
It is a fully functional flying folding kite with 3d printed structures (27 trusses) and lift surfaces made from Mylar (spaceblanket or emergency blanket type of material).
The design and build process is well photo-documented at:
Here are some videos of it:
... here it transforms:
All the files for it and instructions can be found at:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:952737
This type of kite was invented by Alexander Graham Bell (yes, the telephone guy) and hi did some amazing work with them making enormous versions:
http://www.carnetdevol.org/Bell/kite.html
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_64/December_1903/The_Tetrahedral_Kites_of_Dr_Alexander_Graham_Bell
Open Kite
Open Kite is an open source tetrahedral kite project developed by Sehun Oh. Here is his description of the project:
The project brief was about designing a product for play. While I was trying to explore the world of play, I was fascinated by Little Shining Man (Heather & Ivan Morrison, 2011), a huge cubic kite which consists of hundreds of tetrahedral cells, and I decided to explore this intriguing architectural structure.
During the process, I designed 3D printable components for easier and faster kite building and I also found out a way to make the structure collapsible, so that it can be flatten when not in use. Little Shining Man is basically a flying sculpture, so it can be transported on a truck and displayed or stored at a gallery.
Whereas when people build large kites with open kite components, it is collapsible for easier transport and storage. Consequently, this tetrahedral kite becomes a more accessible 'product'. I am also planing to publicise the kite component data for 3d printing as an open source project so that people freely download and make their own tetrahedral structures.
OpenKite video:
Full build instructions and files can be found at:
http://www.sehunoh.com/openkite.html
