Eight-foot cubic kite

Caption Cardiff - Arabstoday Two artists have 3D printed a kite that can actually fly. Wales-based artists Heather and Ivan Morison's deceptively heavy looking cube is based on the tetra kites developed by Alexander Graham Bell in the race towards manned flight. But it has been realised with cutting edge lightweight material - including 3D printed nylon connectors - allowing its 23,000 individual components to float across the sky as if weightless. The Little Shining Man kite is made from carbon fibre rods, a hand-made composite fabric normally used for yacht sails and specially designed, 3-D printed nylon connectors. The sculpture, commissioned by luxury property developers Dandara, was created in collaboration with architectural designer Sash Reading and Birmingham-based fabrication design studio Queen & Crawford. The Morisons are well-known for their installation art pieces, which combine futuristic materials and design to create lavish spectacles. The design of the structure takes a double wing module, duplicates it and arranges it into a tight, cellular structure that appears as a heavy unflyable mass. Small triangular units have been opened out by 30 degrees and multiplied up into colliding cubes that take their shape from naturally occurring geometric forms of the mineral Pyrite. However, using lightweight materials and the symmetry of the module and composition, it is able to fly freely and steadily. The kite flown in the images is one section of an arrangement of three, that come together to create the final piece which is hanging in the atrium of Dandara's Castle Quay development in St. Helier, Jersey. It is intended both as a permanent piece of sculpture and a working kite, and once a year it will be taken down from its display to be flown in nearby St Aubin's bay. Mr Morison said: 'When we first took it out onto the beach you could feel the sculpture come alive; it wanted to twist and tumble as we took it across the sands. 'As the wind took hold it rose slowly, bobbing just above our reach, until a gust caught its sails and lifted way up above us. 'Standing there, watching this complex form that had taken us months to plan and build, rise high up into the sky was truly breathtaking. We felt as Bell must have in his early experiments into flight – a time of true wonder and optimism.' The Morisons said there were several challenges they and their collaborators faced in designing the Little Shining Man. The structure had to be as strong and light as possible in order to fly, but had to return to earth with minimal damage so it could be installed as a piece of sculpture, they say. Carbon fibre rod and Cuben fibre, a hand made composite fabric used primarily in racing yacht sails, achieved the perfect combination of strength and weight. The visual impact of the fabric produces an ethereal sense of depth and refraction that gives the heavy mass the lightest touch. Queen & Crawford designed a universal nylon joint system, the CKJ_01, that would handle every connection in the composition. They worked closely with 3TRPD in Newbury who are at the cutting edge of the Rapid Prototyping Industry. Printing the joints allowed design, production, testing and refinement in a short time frame. Queen & Crawford's director, Matthew Higginbottom, said: 'Modern design and manufacturing technologies open up an infinite world of possibility. 'Our ideas are sketched, digitally modeled and physically printed in the space of just hours. 'The science fiction of our youth is a reality and Little Shining Man shows us this; at once elegant sculpture and robust flying structure.'