Group items tagged

New research shows that birds that are threatened by predators have special coping strategies involving their offspring. In the research when the bird was threatened its offspring were smaller, as expected, but surprisingly the offspring developed faster and grew longer wingspans than the normal sized birds. This seems to be a response to allow the young to fly earlier and faster in more dangerous regions than their counterparts in passive areas. Possible applications for this could be systems that are required to self replicate and adapt to the environment. More research in the way nature conducts this exactly is necessary, but maybe a self-repairing plastic that is aware of its condition knows to grow faster but weaker, or slower and strong depending on the environment. That would be smart, smart plastics.

Not cutting edge or new research, but yet to be brought forth from what I've seen. This article tells of robots built the size of roaches, not resembling them however, coated with a coattail of chemicals resembling that of real roaches. These robots where then accepted into the swarms and even more surprising were able to influence swarm decisions making. When scurrying for cover the robots ran to well light shelter, counter of nature roach behavior, and was able to get the swarm to follow them. More needs to be researched but this is the beginning of understanding the swarm!

Found a robot that is intended to help future oil spills. This robot is related to the topic i am planning to design my robot under

Didn't stop there found articles about the featured robots: Salamander: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11338-salamander-robot-uses-spinal-cord-to-move.html Water-Strider: http://nanolab.me.cmu.edu/projects/waterstrider/ M-tran: http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/26/m-tran-self-reconfigurable-modular-robot/ (personal favorite, make sure to check out the video!)

Be it that we are nearing the end of the class, I found this video to be a very good summary of what we have covered in the class and what we can take away from it. The video is based upon the new movement of finding design inspiration from nature (Biomimicry). For this specific interview, they focus on an interview with Robert Full to educate the viewer about engineering inspiration from nature. If you remember, Robert Full believes that evolution doesn't necessarily design the perfect mechanism, but rather the mechanism that allows the animal to survive. Therefore, we as humans are able to learn from the abilities of animals gained from evolution and further refine the specific ability to be more efficient and applicable to our needs. The video covers a bunch of the innvoations we have discussed during our time in class including the gecko robot and the running robot RHex. I think this would be a nother great video to show in the beginning of the class for next semester. It presents the general idea of BioInspiration, provides examples of research and application, and also discusses the great importance it will play in the future; building more efficient and useful technology.