Chasing Nature

[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.