Making a Kite: Cut Shape From Plastic

Video Transcript

"Now, we're going to measure the size of our kite, and we're going to go ahead, and cut the plastic. We do this by taking the sticks with the dibbles attached, and laying it on top of the plastic, and making points at the four corners. Once we've made our four points, then we can go ahead, and cut the edges, and that will give us the shape of our kite. It's important to do this after you've attached the dibbles, because the dibbles make the kite a little bit longer, and therefore, we're going to need a bigger size when we measure the plastic. So, it's important to do it after the dibbles have been attached to the sticks. Once we have our four points, again, we're going to just connect the dots; make straight lines along with the ruler. So, now we can see that once the lines are attached according to the points we made with the stick, we can see that we have the nice kite shape, we're going to go ahead, and cut on those lines, and the corners of the plastic will come off, and then we'll have the shape that we're looking for. Be very careful when cutting, depending on the type of plastic you have. It could be very thin, and one wrong move could cause the plastic to tear. So, it's important to use a very sharp scissor, and to do it very slow and careful, and make sure that you don't rip any of the plastic unnecessarily. If you do, you will probably need to just take a new piece of plastic, and take a new measurement. The type of plastic that you're looking for is pretty much a standard weight. If it's too heavy it will be harder to get in the air, and will put too much strain on the string and the sticks, and if it's too light, it could tear easily. So, look for a nice standard piece of plastic. You can probably use something found around the house, and if not, you can definitely find something in a craft store. Now I've shown you how to measure the plastic using the wooden sticks, and cut around it so we have a nice shape of a kite. "