My eighth grade science teacher was a distant woman. I didn't really sense any driving passion from her about science or teaching. Then again, looking back with the retrospectoscope, her distant-ness was probably due to the fact that she was studying for a masters degree while she was teaching. I'm sure that would dampen anyone's enthusiasm for pretty much anything.
One thing that I remember from her classes was the projects. The point wasn't that they were original, but that they were fun. Near the end of the year, we were studying aerodynamics and one of our projects for that subject was to construct a kite. The trick was that we couldn't just go out and buy a kite. We had to build it from scratch.
Before then, I had never done any kite flying not to mention even physically touching one. This was before I realized there was even an internet (my parents only gave in and got AOL dialup at the end of my junior year in high school) so I headed off to the library to do some research. Unfortunately, I got there too late. All the books to kites were checked out--except for a tiny book with a fading blue cover. Inside were mostly words and minimal illustrations.
I knew that there were plenty of different kites. I thought making a segmented kite would have been cool, but difficult. So I chose a simple design, one that looked like two squares turned at 45 degrees to each other to form an eight-pointed star.
At the local home improvement store, I bought several thin dowel rods that were lightweight. These were cut and glued together to make the frame. Over that, I tightly taped over it colorful wrapping paper so it was like skin stretched over a drum. This paper is not the glossy kind found at gift stores. It's dull and brittle and used by stores to wrap purchased pottery and glassware--so I already had this around the house. I cut the leftover paper into strips and taped them to two corners of the kite as balancers. Strong white string (the kind found at the same home improvement store) was secured to these two sides by tying it to the frame. I did not use an entire roll of string, instead I rolled a good amount onto an empty toilet paper roll which was easier to handle.
Before flying it at school (where the project would be graded on design and creativity and extra points would be awarded for actually working) I tested the kite in the back yard. One of the rules was that we could have no help in launching the kite. Since I had never flown a kite before, I had numerous failed attempts which had all resulted in the frame dragging along the grass.
Finally, I tried holding just the string above my head until the kite dangled about a foot and a half from my feet. My other hand held the string but the roll was already reeled out for a couple of yards on the ground. The kite was pulled aloft when I ran for a few yards and the wind caught the kite from the bottom where the frame was visible. Once the kite had risen to half the height of a nearby tree, I could safely spool out the string until I got to the roll.
With the control of a taut string twisting in my hand, it was a beautiful thing to see a red and white star dancing across a cloudless sky.
