First draft Tensegrity Kite Cell

First draft Tensegrity Kite Cell
Originally uploaded by trigalactic

This is a different design to Alexander G. Bell's. I wanted to make a true Tensegrity design to take advantage of the structural efficiencies.

The hallmark of a Tensegrity design is that none of the compression members (the coffee stirrers in this kite model) touch each other. They never experience anything but a direct inline compression.

This cell is easy to build. You take three struts and put them in a jig that holds them in the proper geometric relationship. You clip on two sails, one to the top and one to the bottom, then clip on the three tension cables. Release your new cell from the jig and repeat as desired.

I want to add sensors, wireless mesh comms, micro-aero-turbines for power generation, and small microprocessors to make each cell a sort of flocking robot. The corners of each strut-and-sail triangle can clip onto the edges of other cells to create a variety of tessellations in a plane. I'm still thinking about ways to stack planes to make volume-filling kites. That's one of the reasons I made this model, to have something concrete to handle and help figure that out.