Passive flapping butterfly garden ornament?

  • Thread starter Stephen Tashi
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In summary, a feasible design for a garden ornament that would give the illusion of a butterfly hovering around a flower in a breeze could be a windmill-driven mechanism or a wind chime design. While solar-powered versions exist, they may not be suitable as cat toys. Despite the potential for novelty, it seems that flapping kites are not commonly found on the web.
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Stephen Tashi
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What's a feasible design for a garden ornament that would give the illusion of a butterfly hovering around a flower when there was a breeze?

There are solar powered versions of such ornaments such as I don't recommend them as cat toys, but this video gives a closer look at the mechanics of the ornament:

If there was an obvious design, I'd expect that kite makers would have tried it as a novelty. However, the only flapping kites I've found on the web are in the shape of bats and they don't flap much.
 
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  • #2
Use a windmill to drive the mechanism.
 
  • #3
Or design it like a wind chime.
 

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