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This article provides a nice entry point to the field of biomimicry or biological inspiration. It gives 15 well-know and/or cool examples of biomimicry. However, there are so many more examples and after this article has been up for a few years (cannot find the exact date it was published) it feels a little outdated.

I found this 11 minute video when I was looking up information about biomimicry for our Habitat post. Ironically this video has the same speaker from one of our lectures that we watched from moodle. It goes into detail about the history of where and how biomimicry got started, along with an interview with Robert Full that goes into greater detail of the biomimetic experiments that are being done at UC Berkeley. It was really interesting to learn where biomimicry stems from and that scientist havie been using it for many many years.

A slide show of "biomimics." Annoying, but slow auto-play, however, there is a pause option at the top right of the pictures to allow for more time to read.

These are some fantastic pictures - a probably more up-to-date version of the "15-coolest-cases" article (this slide-show is from 2008). I had actually never seen the picture of the woodpecker-hammer. Can somebody make a list of inspirations and the products and put them in the comments? That way you do not have to sit through the slow-slide show if you are looking for something in particular. Think of this annotation section as a reminder for you about the site - what is in it and what you did (not) like about it.

A great video about applying Biomimicry to Architecture. During the talk Michael Pawlyn discusses the ability to increase resource efficiency, create natural cyclical systems within buildings, and incorporating solar technology into sustainable design. He touches on a number of things we have already discussed like the Nimibian Beetle and the fiber produced by spiders. The video is another great example of how far we are from living in unison with the Earth and how much work still needs to be done. I was always a big fan of TED before this class but after finding all these great talks on Biomimicry I'm going TED crazy!

This is a pretty short but interesting article about bullet trains in Japan. Although the trains are extremely fast, they were very noisy when coming out of tunnels due to the air pressure difference created when they exited the tunnels at such high speeds. Therefore, engineers designed the nose of the train after the kingfisher's beak because the kingfisher is a bird that can dive into water at high speeds with very little splashing.

This article is a very interesting example of biomimicry. It reminds me a lot of how we mimic butterfly wings to produce iridescence. This article talks about how physicist Hui Cao from Yale was inspired by birghtly colored bird feathers to create a new type of laser. Just like butterfly wings, the color on the birds' feathers are the result of texture on a nano scale. These brightly colored birds have organized air pockets that reflect light in a certain way. Cao used this to make air pockets in a thin sheet of gallium arsenide. This proved to be effective in creating a cheap, efficient laser light. While he does not have any applications for this yet, it is a great use of nature to start to solve current problems with technology.

In this TED talk, Ross Lovegrove presents some great points for using nature as inspiration for design. Compared to both Janine Benyus and Robert Full, Ross labels the process of inspiration as "DNA", or "Design, Nature, Art". During the talk, Lovegrove advocates a "fat-free" design process that involves the incorporation of nature's efficient design process into design. He is also very passionate about the organic shape that is found throughout nature and using that shape to build products, and thus use less resources to build it. Although Ross talks of a great way of thinking that needs to be adopted by the industry, the products that he shows in his talk are far from realistic. His water bottle design is far from efficient when compared to the current water bottles already in production and his other designs are extremely expensive. I still believe that his underlying teachings are necessary, but his direction for them is a little off. What do you guys think of him? Are his designs realistic or are they just a way to demonstrate the usefullness of Biomimicry?

This is a great article that was posted on Twitter by John McCann. Thank you! This relates to the material silk, which is a very useful naturally-made material. In my research, I came across a goat that was able to produce silk proteins in its milk thanks to science, but I never saw this. This article talks about how some researchers have been able to modify silkworms to produce a mix of silkworm/spider silk. This is much more sturdy than silk from a silkworm alone. It is better to be produced by a silkworm, because they are easier to raise and more efficient at producing silk. This is a great article to think about biomimicry.

This short article discribes the accomplishements in robotics made by Mirko Kovac, a robotics engineer. It goes into detail about his break-through in the "perching" methods that stemmed from his grasshopper-inspired robots. There is also a brief video clip that essentially describes the "perching" process of his robot. I was really amazed to find that these robots are actually programed to run into whatever object they are looking for without being harmed!

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.

The title of this article is pretty self-explanatory, although I was really suprised to find all of the basic ideas to be quite interesting and inspirational. The direct method that is ised in this article is very similar to what we discussed in the last "lecture" of class. This is an article that I will definitely be looking back on to help get the "bioinspired juices flowing" for any future ideas that I may have. I wish that I would have found this article earlier because it might have helped me with some of our earlier assignments.

more on insect robots  

Can you "annotate" or "describe" this website a little bit more? What did you like about it, did it give you any ideas? The website of course promotes the HML (I like the logo?) but are there any weaknesses in their design - yes, the flying robot is very small - but it is no where near autonomous. So, try to convince your classmates to go visit the site by annotating it. And also see the annotation as a way for you remember in 1 year what you liked about the site , to determine it if is worth visiting again.

An article about how the future will be defined in terms of the development of Biology aspect. Without nature, our life would be less convenient.

Hou In, next time add a little bit more to your annotation. What are the drawbacks of this technology? What types of applications do you envision?

I found an amazing smart bird robot. It completely and successfully mimic the way birds fly.

This is a short scholarly article that is definitely worth reading. It expands on the Student Teach Presentation for the Stiff Composites group, specifically the resilin aspects. I was really interested in the resilin's applications in dragonfly wings and its "rubber-like" properties, and this article was perfect for further information on it.

This website is all devoted to the applications of shark skin. Great way to use the design in nature to solve the problems we have to use chemicals for. Linked to a solution for boats, but if you explore the website you'll find other ways that this could be used.

I found this (fairly small) website about biomimicry and how it can be applied to architecture. It has some really cool articles including one about a carbon neutral housing design based off of coral that they would like to see implemented in Haiti. Great stuff, wish the site was larger!

In this TED talk Paul Wolpe discusses the current excels in bioengineering and whether there is a line that needs to be drawn. According to Paul, man has undergone three major waves of evolutions: Darwinian Evolution (passive), Civiliization (controlling the evolutionary environment), and Directed Evolution (design). For the first time in history man is intentionally designing and altering the physiological forms that inhabit our planet. In the speech, Paul posses the question of what are the "ground rules" for bioengineering and creating life by depicting the work we have done so far. The majority of food in the supermarket today already has genetically modified aspects of it without clear regulations or identification on the packages. Are the benefits that may come from genetically modifying organisms worth the manipulation of nature? Paul also talks of recent successfull experiments in which scientists have been able to control animals through computer technology. An "Organic Robot". What do you guys think? Is it right for us to modify animals in order to benefit ourselves? Where is the line drawn? This is no longer science fiction, but a reality.

This is a great self-help guide for anyone who is struggling to come up with ideas from nature. This guide walks you through different techniques you can use to see the inspiration in nature. Yes this is for photography, but if you think big picture this is a guide to find inspiration in nature regardless of your end product. Quick Overview: 1)Take a Closer Look 2)Focus on Variety in a Specific Category 3)Stop Studying Plants 4)Explore Different Perspectives 5)Think of Nature in Motion 6)Combine Opposites 7)Spice up the Color 8)Focus Only on Texture 9)Focus Only on Shape 10)Think How You Want the End User to Feel 11)Use Nature-Inspired Culture 12)Illustrate a Scene from Scratch 13)Create an Abstract Composite of Photographs 14)Use your Imagination 15)Reflect on a Place You Love 16)Zoom Out 17)Create an Imaginary World

John, this is an excellent idea. Thanks for sharing. I will definitely save it to share with future courses.

I find something more about solar energy. Scientists begin to search better way to use solar energy on much smaller things like bacteria. I'm thinking, mostly, we would like to focus on animals, plants or other species are "big" enough to observe. Actually, there are even more things we can learn from those tiny things.