IB 199 BioInspiration Spring 2011

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?

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.

This article descibes the process by which green sulphur bacteria capture and store light energy. I thought that it was interesting because it relates bacteria to quantum physics, which is a connection we don't see to often.

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.

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!

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!

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?

Nice find. Next time add a little bit more to your annotation. Do you see any disadvantages to this type of robot? How about applications?

This article involves using natural methods to control pests and prevent them from eating the rice crop. The article does a wonderful job explaining how important rice is in third world countries and worldwide. This article also explains how researchers teamed up to come up with this three step process. The article does not explain the processes in detail, though. All that it says about the actual mechanisms is :The integrated approach involves three key technologies: electronic insect traps that allow growers to estimate the number of insects in rice storage silos, aeration or refrigeration of silos to delay insect development, and 'modified atmosphere' with the use of carbon dioxide or nitrogen gas, again to slow down pest development. This article is interesting and informative on a big picture scale, but not for a detailed article.

Excellent annotation!

This is an article about a new discovery that some octopuses tuck in six of their legs and run backwards on two to get away from predators. Biologists think this is so that they can remain camouflaged and increase their speed. This is important for bio-inspiration because the article also mentions how this could be used for "soft" robotics and artificial muscle. It is the first underwater bipedal locomotion that has been discovered.

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.

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.

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.