Rob Bender made his own Kite Aerial Photography rig out of the Vex robotic kit. Then the adventure began!
As I was letting the kite up higher, one of the handles on the spool popped out and the spool was pulled from my hands. I chased it across the beach and grabbed it before it got away. However, the lack of tension on the string caused the kite and rig to descend and the rig had hit the ground. When I grabbed the spool again, the kite ascended and rig went back up, but it was tangled into the line and some of the metal had bent. It was too messed up to take any more photos. I popped the handle back into the spool and as we began to pull the kite and rig back down, the wooden suspension broke. Luckily, a small part of the rig was still tangled in the line so it did not come crashing down to the ground. We quickly pulled in enough line that I could untangle the rig from the line and put it down.
Unfortunately after I detached and put down the rig, the spool broke again and slipped out of Christine’s hands. I tried to chase it, but it had already gone over the dunes and inland where there’s a large lake, swamp and forest. The kite went across the lake and into the swamp before the line got caught on something. The kite itself was up several hundred feet in the air and the wind was strong enough that it wasn’t coming down any time soon.
Will Rob’s rig ever fly again? Go read the whole story. – Link
Related MAKE article – Link
Related MAKE Weekend Project Podcast – Link
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