This weeks Design and Technology presentation was all about biomimicry and examples from projects he's done as a design engineering consultant. So I had a look at this years Biomimicry Institutes competition winners to see what new biomimicry solutions are out there. As well as some other interesting uses of biomimicry and opportunities that could come from cool natural systems I have heard about.
Biomimicry Institute
The inspiration for the most recent finalist projects ranges from bottlenose dolphins to moths eyes and solve a huge range of issues. One particular project that interested me was inspired by giant water lily pads. Re-Leaf - the foldable, floating life raft is designed for use in the Philippines where they are highly susceptible to floods during the rainy season. The raft can be used as a bench, roof or divider in order to fit easily into the landscape in the district of Tumana where the project was focused.
The group recognised that current flood protocols are preventative rather than reactive and wanted to create something to that end. As soon as the raft comes into contact with water the air pockets on the underside of the raft will immediately fill with air causing it to float. These air pockets came from the structure on the underside of water lilies which allow air to collect to help them float and provide strength and support for the lily.
This is a cool example because it actually uses natural structures as direct inspiration. A water lily is designed to float on water and be as big as possible to process as much sunlight as possible. Therefore it must be as strong as possible with as little material as possible so the structure is a really efficient design.
Biomimicry Solutions
One of the most famous biomimicry solutions came from Japan and their famous bullet train.
The Japanese bullet train had a problem. Whenever it went through a tunnel it would make a loud boom because of the high speed it was travelling at. Or so it was initially thought. It turned out that the boom was to do with the original bullet shaped face of the train. So in the late 1990s the engineers were tasked with redesigning the front of the train to stop the booming.
One of the engineers on the project was a bird watcher, and he witnessed a kingfisher diving into water to fish and creating very little splash. So he decided to test out a kingfisher beak shaped train and sure enough it there was no boom and the train was more aerodynamic saving about 15% of the energy used to fuel the train. I think it just shows that inspiration is all around if you're open to receiving it.
Natural processes
One crazy example that interested me recently involved using deceased spiders as grabbing claws on "necrobots". It was conducted at Rice University in Texas and utilises spiders muscle mechanics, the researchers noticed a deceased spider curled up and wondered why spiders always curl up when they die.
the reason is that spiders don't have muscles like a human and in fact work more like a hydraulic system by pressurising their legs to expand and depressurising to contract. the engineers used a syringe filled with air to enlarge a chamber near their head that controls their limbs. It was an exploration into different natural materials that could be used for robotics and though macabre shows the ingenious design of a spider.
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