Support fo Curious Crew is provided by MSU Federal Credit Union offering a variety of accounts for children and teens of all ages while teaching lifelong saving habits.

More information is available at MSUFCU.org.

Also by the Consumers Energy Foundation dedicated to ensuring Michigan residents have access to world class educational resources by investing in nonprofits committed to education and career readiness.

More information is available a Consumersenergy.com/foundation and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Rob Stevenson and this is Curious Crew.

Welcome to the show, everybody.

We always like to start every episode with a couple of discrepant events because discrepant events stimulate.

Curiosity.

That's exactly right.

And I have a treat for you.

In fact, I've invited a friend of min to help us out in this episode.

His name is Josh Gordon.

And the thing you need to know about Josh is he used to be a competitive kite pilot.

Now, recentl he and I went on a little trip to a beautiful beac on the shores of Lake Michigan, and he's going to demonstrate the first discrepant event.

Let's watch Wasn't that so impressive?

Oh, my gosh.

Okay, So, Jamella, what was one thing you noticed when you were watching?

He did a lot of tricks.

I find that so impressive.

Probably took a lot of practice too.

Ben, what was something that you noticed?

I'm surprise you could take off on the points and also land on them.

Okay.

How does that happen?

That is really fascinating to me.

Now, I actually have another little discrepant event and a little kite.

This kite is kind of unusual.

It has a hole in it.

Now, I'm going to step forward because I want to see if I can actually get this to fly in here without wind.

Oh, isn't that beautiful?

Oh, my gosh.

I love it.

Okay.

There it is for landing.

Okay, so I've got some interesting phenomena I'm going to ask you to try to figure out.

I'm going to invite three of you to see if you can explain these phenomena by the end of the show.

You can use your background, knowledge, anything that you learned throughout the show to revise your thinking.

I'll even let you as Josh some additional questions to learn about this exciting sport.

Who would like to do a modeling moment today?

Aikem, Will, Emmanuel.

Great.

Now, does anybody have a guess what we're going to be investigating today?

What do you think, Lilly?

What do you think?

Kites.

Kite science.

I don't know what gave it away.

Stick around.

This episode is sure to be uplifting.

Let' see if we can figure these out.

That sport kite was really impressive.

It surprised me how Josh could manipulate it to do all those different moves.

I know.

Did you notice how the strings were let out all the way?

And it has to his wrists.

I saw that too.

That must take a lot of practice to learn all those stunts.

I've never seen someone fl a kite like that inside before.

How can that fly with no wind?

And with a hole in the kite?

Although we don't know who invented the kite.

The first documented evidence dates to 200 BCE in China.

General Han Hsin used a flying kite flown over a city wall to measure how long a tunnel his army would have to dig to get into the city.

Over the next 1500 years.

Kite flying spread to Korea, India, the Middle East, and eventually into Europe.

As kite styles changed, s did the reasons for flying them.

But one thing remains the same flyin a kite is a joyful experience.

Can you remind us of your name and share your history with kites My name is Josh Gordon and I've had a long history with kites.

I've been flying kites since I was seven years old.

In my late teenage years to early twenties I got pretty into competing and did that on a national level.

And now I just fly for fun and do demonstrations all over the Midwest a few times a year.

So let's see if we can make sense of kite science and you can see on the table we have a lot of kites.

Yeah.

I asked you to look at these and examine them to see if you can find some similarities and differences.

Alice, what was something that you noticed?

I noticed that they all have different types of shapes, but each one has a part that catches the air and we call those sails and it acts like a wing, and so it'll interact with air particles and that's what will give it lift, which is kind of neat.

Skyle What was something you noticed?

I know that most of the have bars, but this one doesn't.

Oh, so you're noticing the bars, like on this one over here?

Those are called spars, and it helps give the kite its shape.

They can be rigid.

They can be really flexible.

But you're right.

This one doesn't have any at all.

And in this kite, they actually have it.

So there's little pockets that can catch air and inflate, which is really interesting.

What was something that you noticed Jamella?

I noticed some have tails, but they all have a string.

Okay, So some have tails, some don't.

You're right.

Like this quantum over here.

There's no tail on that one.

But it does have strings and there's different kinds of strings.

Let's look at this quantu over here for just one second.

First, we've got these string that are called Bridle Strings, and those are going to attach to the frame of the kite just like on this one over here.

But you'll notice on this Zenith Seven this really big pinkis one Alice pulling that string, you're going to notice it's actually attached to a piece of fabric that's called a keel so that one doesn't have a bridle string, but it does have the flying string.

And that's what most of us think of when we think about flying kites.

And of course, this has to be really, really, really strong and we want it thin s it doesn't catch a lot of wind.

Now, take a look at this kite.

This one's really interesting.

Have you ever seen one like this before?

No.

It's so fun.

This is a really interesting design.

It's called a flip kite and it's by PRISM Kites.

And I asked my friend Josh to fly this one for us.

Let's watch.

How does it fly?

Oh, now that's a really good question.

So you probably notice whe the kite was flipping like this.

What's happening is it's deflecting air particles away, which means the air particles underneath can make it lift up, which is really amazing.

And you might have also noticed that the faster it rotates, the faster it lifts.

This is called the Magnu Effect, which is really amazing.

It's the same reason that a golf ball will stay in the air so long or why some baseball pitches when they're thrown can curve.

Kind of amazing.

You might have also noticed this circular ring here that actually offers stability, kind of like a gyroscopic effect.

So all of these kites, even this amazing flip kite by Steve Wingard, all of these kite have something else in common.

There's going to be a balance between lift and gravity and tension and drag.

So even though kites can come in many different shapes and sizes, they all rely on lift gravity forward tension and drag to fly.

As air particles push the seal of a properly angled kite, it causes the kite to lift.

At the same time, there is backward drag as those particles flow around the kite surface pushing it back once in the air.

The trick is for the flie to balance the drag with forward string tension and hope that steady wind keeps the lift balanced against gravity's downward force.

Oh, you did it.

What condition make for a good kite flying day?

Well, you obviously want wins.

You don't necessarily want a ton of winds if it's screaming, that might actually hurt you more than help you.

I like wind to be somewher in the 7 to 9 mile an hour range and you want a lot of space as much as possible flying somewhere like a beach that's super nice, especially when the wind's coming off the water.

You get nice, clean win that's not going over buildings.

It's not going through trees to get to you.

So the more the more space, the better.

For sure.

Okay.

So we have here the Zenith seven single line Delta Kite.

Now, what are you noticing about this?

Well, it's really big and has a keel and it has a keel.

Okay, great.

So it's reall big.

Has a keel.

Good noticing.

What do you notice Emmanuel?

It has two ribbon tails.

Two ribbon tails.

Excellent.

And those tails can actually come off.

I can snap them on or off.

And in fact I asked Josh to fly this twice.

Once without the tails and once with the tails.

Let's watch.

Okay, So that was great.

But let's see it again with the tails on.

Okay, So what did you notice Laynie?

that he had more control when the tails were on.

Yeah.

You can really see tha the way it took off like that.

Great.

Noticing it's actually adding mass to the entire kite.

And that provides stability.

Plus, when you look up in the air, it's really coo seeing those tails flying a lot.

What did you notice?

Emmanuel I noticed that he had his back to the wind.

There's a good reason for that.

And in fact, when we're thinking about flying kites, we want to pay attention to wind direction and wind speed.

Now, finding direction, this is pretty easy.

I just have a little ribbon on a stick and I'm goin to turn this fan on over here.

And you can see how our ribbon will react when it's in the wind.

Right?

We see it in the window of wind.

And so ideally, you want t stand with your back to the wind and so you can keep your kite in a good angle, Right.

So you get a good lift.

Now, some stunt kites, you can actually cheat a lot with your angle because you can maneuver it so much.

But a single line kite like this, you try to keep your back to the wind.

Okay, great.

Anything that you noticed Lilly?

Well it was really windy.

Super windy.

You could see how it took off like that.

In fact, I even took this digital anemometer right to the beach because I was curious, how fast is the wind going?

The way this works, you jus place it directly into the wind.

The wind blows through those little blades and it will give a readin for how fast the wind is going.

There's other ways you can do this, too.

This is something that's called the Beaufort Wind scale.

And if you look at this, there's a range describing wind of different forces, different speeds.

So Laynie, take a look at tha and tell me what range of forces might be good for flying a kite.

Probabl between two and four would be a That's really good thinking.

Really good thinking.

In fact, I could use this kite in force, too, because a light breeze isn't that much.

But this is a huge sail, so I can catch a lot of wind.

When Josh and I were out there, we were having a range from about 8 to 16 miles per hour, which most kite fliers say is ideal.

Now, learnin to take advantage of wind takes a lot of practice but it's really a fun challenge.

When flying a kite, make sure you have a day with a steady breeze ideally 8 to 15 miles per hour.

If the wind is strong, choose a kite with a longer tail or a smaller sail.

If the wind is light, try a larger sail or a kite with no tail.

If you only have one kite, move the top point forward in lighter winds to help with lift or move it down for the higher winds.

Now that you have the kite, be sure to select a large ope space like a field park or beach so you can let out plenty of line.

Wow, that's really high.

What do you enjoy most about kite flying?

It's very relaxing and you feel connected to nature.

The wind around you, you know, the wind is you can see its effects, but you can't necessaril see it, you know, But feeling it with a kite is about as close as you can get.

STEM Challenge.

So have you been having fun investigating kite science today Yeah.

I'm so glad.

Now I have a really fun STEM challenge for you.

You're going to be designing a paper kite out of a single sheet of paper, and these are going to have no spars.

Now, I know you have some plans You guys ready to get started?

All right, Have fun.

First, good luck high five.

So what should we do?

What should we do?

You want to mark it first?

The purpose of this challenge was to make the kite out of paper and without the spars, which is the structure of the kite.

Didn't you say I put the stickers on right now or?

Yeah I'll put on the tape first.

Okay.

The materials we used are paper, stickers, tape, and the ribbon.

So I'm going to decorate the ribbon and I'm going to make it like striped and it's going to be like two different texture colors.

Got it.

We used the ribbon so we had a tail and we added the tape to i so then we would have more mass on the kite and we added stickers for decoration.

We wanted to use the thin paper because we used a lot of decorations and if we did use the thick paper, it'd be too heavy.

I'm going to double kno it just to be on the safe side.

Should we add the tape?

Some tape to this?

Oh, yes of course.

Oh, that will look like fun.

We were using the mass at the end so it stayed stable in the air and it added more weight to the bottom.

So the plane is level with the wind.

Instead of doing the clear tape, we did the blue green tape all around, like Curious Crew colors.

That'd be kinda cool?

Okay.

Yes, Yes.

Nice.

I like that.

Our strategy of making the kite stay is making it level so that it's not too much up or too much down.

This is looking amazing.

Yeah, right.

Oh, my these are looking beautiful.

I've got a great idea.

We're going to move the tables out of the way.

We're going to bring in a fan and see if we can get these to fly right in here.

You guys ready to try it?

Yeah.

This should be really fun.

So let's take a look at this first prototype.

I noticed you used an eigh and a half by 11 piece of paper.

That's great.

But, Skyler, talk to me about the tail.

What did you do there?

We use curious crew colors, and we also made it heavier so then it is more steady in the wind.

I think we should try this.

Right.

Let's fire up this fa and see if we can get some lift.

I'll let it go and let you do your thing.

Nice.

Look at that.

Good job.

Good job.

Well done.

Well done.

We have a couple more prototypes to check out.

So I notice we've got our next prototype here, but this paper is a little different.

What did you use Ben?

Cardstock.

So this one's a little bit heavier than the last one.

And I also notice your string o your tail has been added on to how come we did that?

We wanted some more stability.

All right, let's fire up this fan and see how it does.

There you go.

Oh, that's pretty.

Nice.

Oh, yeah.

I can see how that really made a difference there.

Nice job.

Good prototype.

Good prototype.

Everybody, we've got one more to try.

So let's take a look at this last prototype.

And Laynie, did you just use a ordinary piece of paper there?

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

Now talk to me about the length of the tail.

How come you decided on that length?

We just wanted more weight and more mass.

Nice.

Okay, I think we should try this.

What do you think?

You guys really try this?

Let's turn this on and let's see how it does.

Lilly's got it for us.

You guys can work together when you get it in that window of air.

Oh, wow.

Nice.

Yeah.

Yeah that looked lik it really caught a lot of air.

Oh, my gosh.

That's lovely.

Great job.

Great job.

It's really tall.

Lets have a hand for all of your prototypes.

Well done everybody.

So I wanted to show you a paper kite.

I took out to the beach with Josh.

And in fact, when I took this out there and tried to fly it, i kept spinning around in circles really, really, really fast.

Anybody have a guess on what I could have done to redesign this?

What could I have done, Skyler?

What could I have done?

Oh, you could have had more weight to it.

Yes.

If I added more weight lengthening the tail, I could have increased that stability.

Because, remember it's always a balance of forces.

Try making your own paper kite at home.

You'll be flying in no time.

Even though kites come in a lot of different shapes and patterns, they're usually categorized into one of four groups.

The crew designed an example of a single line kite, which is tethered by a single flying line that the flier holds.

Sport Kites use multiple lines, which allows the kite to engage in exciting maneuvers.

There are also indoor kites that can use single or multiple lines can either be large or tiny, but are very lightweight and fly by tugging on the strings.

Power kites.

They have large sails and can produce enough force so riders can enjoy kite buggying, land boarding, or even kite surfing.

What materials are modern kites commonly made of?

The kites nowadays are made out of ripstop nylon.

It's super light, super durable, which are things you want when you're flying a kite.

And they're also making kites out of Mylar, which is one of the ones that we flew from PRISM.

But you want durability and then weight plays a big part when you're trying to launch it into the sky.

So we've see how kites can come in a lot of different shapes and sizes.

But this one's really different.

This one's called a Tetrahedral, and I actually made this out of tissue paper, straws, and string.

And Ben I want you to do me a favor.

I want you to lift it up and tell me what you notice.

It's really light.

It is really light.

Which seems kind of strange because there's a lot here.

There's ten different three dimensional equilateral triangles but there's not a lot of mass.

So how does it fly?

Oh, now that's a really good question.

I'm going to actually turn on this fan and hold this up here and you'll see how all of these sails will start catching air that then get deflected back through the pyramid and it'll try to lift It' trying to lift on me right now.

So you get a sense it's actually pretty amazing to watch something like this fly.

A lot of scientists and engineers have experimented with tetrahedral kites.

In fact, Alexander Graham Bell the inventor of the telephone, he experimented with so many different sized kites of tetrahedral nature.

He even tried to hoist a person up in the air just with the power of wind.

This kite is really one to tak advantage of the power of wind.

The Tantrum 250 Dual line Power Kite.

I asked Josh to fly this.

Let's take a look.

Pretty impressive.

I know.

What did you notice, Aikem?

Well, I noticed that Josh had all the string out, and he had to lean against the pull of the wind.

Hence power kite.

Right.

Because there's a lot of pull.

The way this canopy is designed, it's super efficient at catching the wind, an it will provide a lot of pull.

What did you notice Ben?

It looked lik he controlled it with the bar.

Okay.

That's right.

So he's holding that bar.

And in fact, if we follow th string on this bar all the way back, it's going to take u to this nest of bridle strings.

But every single one of these bridle strings is meticulously placed to maintai this perfect pair of foil wing to make sure you have a great internal pressure while it's in flight.

It's really an amazing technology.

Now I want to try something.

I've made a little parafoil wing right here, just supported with straws, and I'm going to turn on that fan for just one second and see if we get any reaction on my little car here.

Oh, there.

Oh, yes.

This is super efficient.

And that's why the parafoil wing is used in a lot of different sports.

Is the power kite simila to what's used in a paraglider?

Exactly.

This is just a smaller version of that technology, but that Parafoil win is so efficient at catching air, it can actually suspend a rider for a really long time.

Now, the bar, this control bar is actually really similar to what's used in kite surfing as well.

Pretty amazing.

Now regardless of the shape, the design of kites are always really impressive.

How does the shape of a kite sail impacts the kites lift?

Well shape and size is going t matter in a few different ways.

Nice kite that would have more of a steep angle.

That's going to be a little bit quicker, less stable when it lifts up there.

So a kite that maybe has a little bit shallower of an angle, wider, more material is going to be a lot more sturdy a lot more stable up in the air.

Are you curious about careers in science?

Hi, I'm Aikem, and today I'm with Lia Fry.

Lia, tell me what you do and where we are?

I am a motion capture technician here at Haptics Studio in Lansing, Michigan.

A motion capture technicia helps bring characters to life.

It's mostly used for film and video game productions, so we'll take the movement of an actor on stage and we'll put it onto a digital character and make it an animation.

We want to give motion capture a try.

Yeah, I would love it.

Let's do it.

STEM is involved in a lot of different aspects of motion capture.

The biggest one is the technology.

We'll also use mathematics a lot.

Specifically, geometry will take our digital environments, measure them out, and then we can recreate them out here in the space.

Now here's the playback of your epic dive into the beanbags.

Today I calibrated of my knowledge I've done with Lia Fry.

Explore your possibilities.

And now back to Curious Crew.

What tips do you hav for people new to flying kites?

Patience and practice.

So you're not not going to be good at it right away.

It's okay if you crash, it's okay if you break it.

Kites can be fixed, they can be repaired.

If you're flying a two line kite, my biggest tip would be to keep your arms at your sides.

You don't want them out here.

You want them right here where you can move your hands forward and back.

Because that's really what's going to control the kite.

We know how to sport kite sai made a good wing to catch air, and the mylar material and spars made it both ligh and rigid, making lift easier.

And that also made it easier for Josh to capture the wind from different angles.

So somehow his arm movements make all those maneuvers possible.

That's right.

Dr.

Rob had to move his arm a lot with the windless flight, too.

That's probably because there wasn't any wind to generate the lift.

So did you had fun investigating kite science today?

Yeah.

I'm so glad.

It's now time to return to these discrepant events to see if we can figure them out.

I know you've thought a lot about this, and you've even gotten some good information from Jos as you've been interviewing him.

But what have we figured out about the aerial stunts Emmanuel?

We know that the quantum Kit has multiple lines of control.

Okay, great.

And so how does that help us Aikem?

He would change the tension on one side or the other by moving his arm backwards or forward.

We could actually see that right?

When he wanted to lift it of the ground, some downward thrust and something went flying straight up.

But of course, if you wanted to turn it to the right, he could pull back his right arm.

Or if you wanted to move his arms in this jerking fashion, he could make it dance around doing those cascades.

These are all called slack line tricks, and it is a result of just changing the tension in the line.

But what about the landing Will?

He circled the kite just above the ground and then walked forwards.

Let it drop onto the sand.

And every time I see that, I'm impressed.

Okay, so what have we figure out about this windless flight?

What do you think Aikem?

We know that the hole in the kite lets some of the air particles through, so there isn't so much drag.

Okay, good thinking.

What else would you add to that, Emmanuel?

That means that you don't nee as much tension on the string.

Okay, great.

Anything else Will?

If you want to keep it in the air, you have to keep it moving by either walking or moving your arm.

And so if I do that, I can maintain tha balance of forces right between gravity and lift, between tension and drag.

Let's do it one more time.

Walking amongst the kites.

So keep it nice and taut and up it goes, isn't that awesome?

And of course, I find this incredibly relaxing as well.

Now, we wanted to thank our friend Mr.

Josh Gordon for flying all these beautiful kites.

So as we've seen, kite flying is not only a sport that anybody can enjoy.

It's also a really fun way t explore the science of flight.

So remember, my friends, sta curious and keep experimenting.

Support fo Curious Crew is provided by MSU Federal Credit Union, offering a variety of accounts for children and teens of all ages while teaching lifelong saving habits.

More information is available at MSUFCU.org also by the Consumers Energy Foundation, dedicated to ensuring Michigan residents have access to world class educational resources by investing in nonprofits committed to education and career readiness.

More information is available a Consumersenergy.com/foundation and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Curious Crew Season eleven episode five STEM Challenge.

Take one.

That's good, man.

That's good.

That's good.

Good job, buddy.

Curious Crew Seaso eleven episode five STEM results take one.

That's a tickling tale right there.

That'll end up in the bloopers.