All posts by Darcy

New York World Maker Faire 2011

Outreach,

I’m going down to New York to attend the Open Source Hardware Conference, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Moma, World Maker Faire and a few other things.

At the World Maker Faire, I have a non-commercial booth so I can demonstrate the Squirrel. I will bring some of the raw materials a few small tools and show how the kits are made. I’ll bring a pile of kits so people can see those too. I’ll also show some of the techniques of making the Squirrel kits and flying.

I’ll probably make about 10 of them over the weekend and I hope there is some blue sky to fly them into. If all goes well they get lost in trees and stuff. 🙂

Perhaps I can inspire someone to make a Squirrel or make a new design.

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Preshrinking Tissue Paper for Stick and Tissue Planes

Experimental,

Here’s a tip from Chuck Young.

He’s been helping kids make planes at school.

In order to prevent the tissue from shrinking and warping the plane, he’s been preshrinking the tissue.

I’ve heard of this before and I know it works.

What I’ve been doing is having children crumple the wing tissue before building. That way there is a bit of pre-tension in the tissue so the problem never occurs.

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Comments from John Mackey from Pittsburgh

Testimonial

Hi Darcy,

We made the Squirrels and had great fun flying them!

Of course, one got stuck in a tree and we managed to get a broom handle
and broom end stuck in the tree as well. After getting a ladder from home,
we were able to get the plane, with cheers from the 20 or so onlookers who
had gathered 🙂

Squirrels = Good Fun

Thanks so much for making them available along with the detailed videos.

–John Mackey

 

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