engineering

Related Pages

• Biomimicry Toolbox
  By applying nature’s design lessons, we can create solutions that help support a healthy planet. This digital resource site from the Biomimicry Institute provides a quick-start guide to biomimicry, introducing the core concepts and methods that are essential to successfully incorporate insights from nature into design. https://toolbox.biomimicry.org/
• Video: Biomimicry Global Design Challenge 2015 - HIPS
  This team from South Africa has designed a peer-to-peer networking app called HIPS whose algorithm mimics the way that large collectives in nature, such as a flock of birds or a school of fish, function. The goal is to enable small scale intensive food production systems by providing a dynamically-distributed, peer-to-peer tool to help manage and coordinate their efforts. First, the app will enable food producers to connect with other producers (permaculture, organic, biodynamic – urban or rural) to create a local swarm in which resources can be shared and local exchanges and transactions are conducted. Next, the app connects local swarms with each other to create a regional swarm and establish a produce hub. Finally, it records surplus produce for sale and, once sold, enables coordination with other swarms and members to facilitate distribution logistics. This software facilitates and optimises logistics, provides a medium for fair exchange of value, and provides incentives to food producers to employ best practices in a resilient, distributed value network comprised of collectives of autonomous food producers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXuzytvdvrM&list=PLRmMq_ZoYztxwYN6KSu2tSHvJ0MdntBzF&index=4
• Video: Soft Robot based on Honeycomb Pneumatic Networks
  The SoftRobot group of Multi-agent System Lab, is focused on making better soft manipulators. Imitating the plants, our team make a pneumatic soft manipulator with structure of Honeycomb PneuNet(HPN). By modifying the movement of nature flexible organisms and using a model-free machine learning method, we aim to develop a suitable control method for the robot, which can suit the different environments and grasp various objects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoKHcbz-ieM
• Video: What is Biomimicry?
  Biomimicry Is Innovation Inspired By Nature. Learn more in this video by Fast Company that speaks to Janine Benyus founder of the Biomimicry Institute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBUpnG1G4yQ
• Article: Cornell Scientists Create Lifelike Biomachines That Eat, Grow And Race Competitively
  It's not quite Skynet, but scientists have created "lifelike" machines seem like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. Researchers from Cornell University has crafted what they call artificial machines using synthetic DNA that can move on their own, grow, evolve, consume resources and eventually die. https://hothardware.com/news/cornell-scientists-create-lifelike-biomachines-evolve
• Article: Bio-inspired Bug Eye Camera | Artificial Compound Eye
  In this study, University of Colorado researchers combined elastomeric compound optical elements with deformable arrays of thin silicon photodetectors into integrated sheets that can be elastically transformed from the planar geometries in which they are fabricated to hemispherical shapes for integration into apposition cameras. https://www.colorado.edu/lab/xiao/bio-inspired-bug-eye-camera-artificial-compound-eye
• Article: Butterfly wings inspire a better way to absorb light in solar panels
  The wings of a butterfly have inspired a new type of solar cell that can harvest light twice as efficiently as before and could one day improve our solar panels.
• Article: Butterfly Wings May Improve Airplane Wings
  With a flap of its wings, the butterfly is causing a flurry in the science world.  Through a science called biomimicry, researchers are learning how butterfly wings could improve the design and manufacture of several commercial products.Mechanical engineers are mimicking nature to shorten your next flight. https://www.insidescience.org/video/butterfly-wings-may-improve-airplane-wings
• Article: How to build a bio-bot: Researchers share design and development of biological machines
  Creating tiny muscle-powered robots that can walk or swim by themselves—or better yet, when prompted—is more complicated than it looks. Rashid Bashir, the head of the bioengineering department at the University of Illinois, and Taher Saif, a professor of mechanical science and engineering at Illinois, will speak in Boston on the design and development of walking and swimming bio-bots at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. https://phys.org/news/2017-02-bio-bot-biological-machines.html
• Article: Monitoring Solitary Bees Using Open Technology
  “Bees in the Backyard” is a citizen science technology project to investigate the nesting behavior of Mason bees, by Mike Teachman, amateur bee enthusiast and Paul Perrault senior field applications engineer.
• Gilberto Esparza: Nomadic Plants
  Vegetation and microorganisms live in symbiosis inside the body of the Nomadic Plants robot. Whenever its bacteria require nourishment, the self-sufficient robot will move towards a contaminated river and ‘drink’ water from it. Through a process of microbial fuel cell, the elements contained in the water are decomposed and turned into energy that can feed the brain circuits of the robot. Find out more about this art work by Gilberto Esparza in this article. https://we-make-money-not-art.com/_1_cuando_lei_acerca/
• Natalie Jeremijenko: The Art of the Eco Mindshift
  Natalie Jeremijenko's unusual lab puts art to work, and addresses environmental woes by combining engineering know-how with public art and a team of volunteers. These real-life experiments include: Walking tadpoles, texting "fish," planting fire-hydrant gardens and more. https://www.ted.com/talks/natalie_jeremijenko_the_art_of_the_eco_mindshift?language=en
• Resource: Biomimicry Global Design Challenge
  The science is clear and so is our imperative. To reverse course, we need a new generation of innovators who know how to create human materials, products, and systems that are regenerative, circular, and generous to all species. Are you ready to learn how to design generously through the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge? Our challenge is this: Create a nature-inspired innovation (a product, service, or system) that aligns with one or more Sustainable Development Goals, outlined by the United Nations. https://challenge.biomimicry.org/en/challenge/global-design-challenge-2020
• Student example: Bio-inspired drawing samples
  To get you ready for the project of doing a nature-inspired drawing informed by the topic of pollinator decline and biodiversity loss. here are some examples
• Video: From Butterflies to Biophotonic Implants
  At Caltech, engineers inspired by nano-scale structures on butterfly wings have developed synthetic versions that make eye implants for glaucoma patients function more accurately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBXZF9em4Go&feature=share
• Video: Bats advancing human technology
  Bats are known for their bony wings and fast flight. Researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island are studying these characteristics to determine how bats can advance human technology.
• Video: Biomimicry Global Design Challenge 2015 - Jube
  Edible insects may be one of the answers to our global food crisis. They are high in protein and rich in essential micronutrients, such as iron and zinc. They also don’t need as much space as livestock, emit lower levels of greenhouse gases, and have an extremely high feed conversion rate. The BioX team from Thailand developed Jube, a bio-inspired chamber for capturing edible insects, the food of the future. After studying a range of carnivorous plants, the team decided to base their design on the Genlisea violacea “lobster-pot trap.” This is a Y-shaped modified leaf chamber that is easy to enter, but not to exit due to its inward-pointing hair, which force the prey to move in a particular direction. To use Jube, the user puts insect food into the bottom part of the device to lure the insects. Once the insects follow the odor and step into Jube, they can’t turn back. This device promotes a more sustainable way to incorporate protein and nutrients into the world’s diet by offering an insect-capturing device that is unique and beautifully crafted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oglRLGPVoVA&list=PLRmMq_ZoYztxwYN6KSu2tSHvJ0MdntBzF&index=5
• Video: Design Inspired by Nature
  What if we told you that the most powerful laboratory in the world doesn’t have any microscopes, safety goggles, or walls? When it comes to figuring out efficient solutions, no human lab can compete with nature. That’s because evolution and natural selection work like an experiment: as nature’s conditions change, designs can either succeed or fail. Nature is such a powerful lab because it can run millions of these evolutionary experiments simultaneously. And, just like labs, nature has a lot to teach us! Watch this video to learn how engineers draw inspiration from the natural strength of a glass sea sponge! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezd4AcC3uZ4&feature=share
• Video: From mach-20 glider to hummingbird drone| TED
  "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" asks Regina Dugan, then director of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In this breathtaking talk she describes some of the extraordinary projects -- a robotic hummingbird, a prosthetic arm controlled by thought, and, well, the internet -- that her agency has created by not worrying that they might fail. https://www.ted.com/talks/regina_dugan_from_mach_20_glider_to_hummingbird_drone?language=eo#t-998234
• Video: Soft autonomous earthworm robot at MIT
  Earthworms creep along the ground by alternately squeezing and stretching muscles along the length of their bodies, inching forward with each wave of contractions. Snails and sea cucumbers also use this mechanism, called peristalsis, to get around, and our own gastrointestinal tracts operate by a similar action, squeezing muscles along the esophagus to push food to the stomach. Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXkf62qGFII
• Video: The world is poorly designed. But copying nature helps.
  Biomimicry-the design movement pioneered by biologist and writer Janine Benyus. She's a co-founder of the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit encouraging creators to discover how big challenges in design, engineering, and sustainability have often already been solved through 3.8 billion years of evolution on earth. See real world application in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMtXqTmfta0
• Video: Why Nature Loves Hexagons
  From spirals to spots to fractals, nature is full of interesting patterns. Many of these patterns even resemble geometric shapes. One of the most common? Hexagons. Why do we see this six-sided shape occur so many times in nature? This week we explore why hexagons are so common in the natural world, from honeycomb to bubbles to rocks, and what their mathematics, physics, and biology may have in common.
• Video:12 sustainable design ideas from nature | Janine Benyus
  In this inspiring TED talk about recent developments in biomimicry, Janine Benyus provides heartening examples of ways in which nature is already influencing the products and systems we build.