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Vol. 01: Kite Aerial Photography Puts Your Eye in the Sky

To take pictures from a kite, you need three things: a kite, a camera, and a special rig that attaches the camera to the kiteline and activates the shutter button on the camera. Here's how to do it.

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Source List

Most, if not all for the materials you need for this project are available at hardware, craft, and office supply stores. If you can't find a particular item, or plan to make a lot of rigs (for a class project or the like) the following sources could come in handy.

• Our dampening agent, Silly Putty, is very similar to Dow Corning 3179 Dilatant Compound (silicone polymer). The first site links to a fact sheet on DC 3179 and is source for bulk purchase. A retail egg of Silly Putty™ contains 0.47 oz. and costs around $3.00 – that’s around $100 per pound. If you want to make a bunch of these rigs for a school project, you can buy a pound of DC 3179 for $21 delivered. Better yet, the Crayola site sells five pounds of the actual branded Silly Putty product for $60.

• The National Balsa Company of Massachusetts, “Purveyors of Fine Balsa”, is a handy and inexpensive source for the basswood and plywood used in the project. They offer glues as well. $25 minimum order.

• K&S Engineering are an ubiquitous source for small metal sections like the brass tubes used in our viscous timer – their compact Tube and Wire Center displays are tucked away somewhere in many hardware stores. A quick WWW search (K&S brass tube) will yield hundreds of K&S vendors.

• Small Parts Inc. How can you resist an outfit that bills itself as “the hardware store for researchers and developers”? A comprehensive, if occasionally pricey, Small Parts, Inc. is a fine source for a myriad of high quality parts.

• Microfasteners of New Jersey is a convenient source for the small machine screws and can provide all connectors for this project including the nylon bolts.

• A search for low cost sources of the Kodak MAX single-use camera led to an old favorite – the mail order photographic supplier B&H Photo Video in New York.