Chasing Nature

[petek]

Anyone catch Animal Planet's new show Chasing Nature? It's a "reality" show where Stanford engineering students attempt to mimic animal behavior. They had to make it pretty superficial to fit in the timeslot (and not lose non-geek viewers), but they touch on the challenges, frustrations and coolness of engineering - and reveal some neat stuff about how nature has solved the same problem.

The current show - Bird of Prey - gives the students five days to duplicate the claw of a raptor to catch a fish in the water from a high-wire fly-by. Not to take anything away from them, but I bet a lot of FIRST teams could've given them a run for their fish!

Yeah, Seems like we could give them a little challenge. I mean, the basic Idea is to have a fast acting snapping claw, probably actuated by a pneumatic, unless there's something faster. As for a trigger piece, I'd probably go with a tiny switch, where when hit it fires the solenoid for the cylender. I did a bsic design of how the claw could work... What can I say, I love inventor, and I was bored...

[mechanicalbrain]

I remember on "Anatomy of a Bear" Technifex made a robotic bear that was just wicked. It used hydraulics if I remember correct and this thing was shredding a side of pork like a chainsaw. They also emulated a couple other animals too. Amazing pieces of work, all of them.

I really hope they get the anatomy right. I'm not sure if pneumatics would be adequate since the talons of a bird are quite flexible and extremely strong. If they are catching fish then they would want two toes in the front and two in the back like an Osprey, the three in the front and one in the back is what you would see on a eagle or a hawk. Something like this is what they should be looking at.

Thanks for the thread I'm definitely going to start watching this.

[KenWittlief]

Bio mimicry: copying the engineering principles of biology into man made machines.

Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes its not. For many years people tried to make flying machines that mimicked birds wings, and it could not be done, for two reasons: 1. Birds alter the shape of their wings in flight by applying pressure to groups of feathers and 2. Birds flap their wings with muscles, and they did not have machines that could duplicate the power and actions of muscles.

For many years this held back mans first successful powered and controlled flight. When the Wright brothers built a wind tunnel and experimented with wing shapes and wing warping, then they made the breakthrough that led to Kittyhawk.

But other times Bio mimicry pays off. The robot that honda designed that dances and walks is very power hungry. A university group in the US designed a walking robot that copies the way a human body 'falls forward' between each step, and as a result this robots walking method is 3 times more energy effecient than Honda's bot.

[petek]

I don't want to post too much of a spoiler since this show will be on for another month before the next episode, but it seemed that the trigger for closing the claw was the biggest problem the team faced. Well, maybe the second biggest - on one of the Stanford pages one of the students said that they only got to engineer for a few hours a day because of all the re-shoots of "reality".

A neat factoid from the show: in nature, the bird closes its claw in about 20 msec.

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Bio mimicry: copying the engineering principles of biology into man made machines.

Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes its not. For many years people tried to make flying machines that mimicked birds wings, and it could not be done, for two reasons: 1. Birds alter the shape of their wings in flight by applying pressure to groups of feathers and 2. Birds flap their wings with muscles, and they did not have machines that could duplicate the power and actions of muscles.

I heard bird and dredged up this:Scientific America Transcript
PS. I think they engineers are having problems with the whole getting something to fly like a bird.