Passive flapping butterfly garden ornament?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephen Tashi
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    garden
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
2 replies · 2K views
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.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Physics news on Phys.org