I believe that some of the best designs are directly inspired by nature. Whether you believe these natural phenomenon were perfected through evolution or by a higher intelligence, we can agree that the innovations found in nature are often incredibly elegant as well as aesthetically pleasing. There are many examples of biomimicry, here are some of my favorites:
Velcro
Invented by a Swiss Engineer after becoming inspired by the seeds of the Burdock plant that kept sticking to his clothing and his dog's fur during a hunting trip. He took this natural design for fertilization and made the fastener that we all use daily.
Lotusan Paint
This paint is incredibly hydrophobic, which allows rain water to instantly bead off and wipe away dirt and grime that has accumulated on the surface, saving cleaning costs. This paint was inspired by the lotus plant which has a surface texture that causes water to bead and flow to the roots of the plant.
Mirasol Displays
As mentioned in class, these energy efficient displays mimic the reflective qualities of butterflies and their beautiful multi-colored wings.
Bucket Brigades
The natural assembly line of ants and bees. How do they achieve such high work efficiency and balance without an actual plan or blueprint? Their natural assembly line can be described like the bucket bridges used to fight fires. The workers line up from slowest to fastest, in which each worker works on their task until completion or they are relieved by the next worker, in which they move back and relieve the previous worker. This natural phenomenon has been implemented in many distribution centers such as CVS which saw a 34% increase in productivity after utilizing the system. In my opinion, Chipotle also uses a simplified version of the assembly line, which is how I get my tasty burritos so fast!
Post some other good examples of biomimicry!
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I think this is such an neat concept! It's a really intriguing and comforting idea that we can look to simple examples in nature to find "innovative" ways to solve our problems. Surprisingly, I have encountered this in several classes this year. The first was in Numerical Methods for optimization, of all places, where many algorithms are based on biological phenomena such as animal social actions, swarm behavior and ant colony formation. On a more global level, recently the reading from Sustainability suggested imitating the natural closed-loop cycle of the planet where 'waste' is really just food for something else. So apparently by imitating the planet, we can save it :)
ReplyDeleteBiomimicry is one of the coolest if not THE coolest design techniques that is out there. I truly believe that the things on our world were placed here for certain reasons and they have unique applications for a variety of cases. Looking deeper within our world has definitely taught us some extremely valuable lesson. The above examples are great for illustrating how we can take advantage of what is available to us right now. I believe everyone should first look to see if our planet has designed a solution for a specific problem first. There's probably a good chance it has...
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