I watched some
videos of the prize winning human powered helicopter and the first thing I thought was "must show kids" for the inspirational/educational aspect of it. My second thought, though, was that's a
lot of string involved both structurally and driving the propellers. Wonder what knots they used?
Which reminds me that when I went to
the local science museum a few weeks ago, there was an exhibit of
Rube Goldberg-ish machines that were mostly connected by string. These were button-push activated museum exhibits, so there would be hundreds of activations a day over the course of the exhibit during which the machines would lift, twitch and flap for a while... so those knots would see a lot of stress.
Just tried to attach some pictures I took of the knots in the exhibit, but even after fiddling with the image sizes, they still would not post. I'll try again later.
