BIOMIMETICS
Design By Nature
Timeline of Important Events in Biomimetic History
1948
George de Mestral invented velcro after finding cocklebugs, that attached to his pants and dog’s fur, were tipped with tiny hooks. Velcro uses the hook-and-loop construction that grips instantly, but lets go with one tug.
1982
Wilhelm Barthlott found the lotus leafs’ water repellant surfaces make them naturally self-cleaning. He called this discovery the “lotus effect” and used it to design a paint called “lotusan” that repels water and resists stains for decades.
2004
Frank Fish, Laurens Howle, David Mikilosovic and Mark Murray published the results of their experiment proving that flippers with tubercles have 8% better lift properties, can stall at a 40% steeper angle and has a 32% lower drag rate than sleek flippers which are usually used when making airplane wings.
2004
Julian Vincent, a professor of biomimetics, develops a “smart” clothing that adjusts to different temperatures. The inspiration? Pinecones. Pinecones open up and release their seeds when the weather starts to get warm , and closes tight when it gets cold. The same thing happens with the smart clothing, it opens when it’s hot, to cool you down, and tightens when its cold, to keep your body heat inside.
2004
Scientist from Penn State University release their plans for morphing airplane wings according to the speed and duration of the flight. The morphing of the wings are inspired by different species of birds and how they all have different wings according to how fast they fly, where, and for how long. But to constantly be able to change the wings, the overlaying skin must be able to change too. Which is why they finally ended up using the concept of fish scales that can come in and out of the plane.
2005
Engineers, designers, and biologists at Mercedes-Benz have modeled a car after the Obstracion Cubicus- more commonly known as the boxfish. The aerodynamic fish moves with minimal amounts of energy, as does the car, which will boost gas mileage to as much as 70 miles per gallon.
2008
A research team in Japan, led by Seiji Aoyagi, invented a needle designed to make medical injections less painful. The needle was designed after a mosquito's proboscis, which has two tiny serrated edges that enter the skin first, which make contact with skin barely noticeable.
2009
Ron R. Roy discovered that the ear of the Omnia Fly ‘s can be mimicked to be implanted into ears as hearing aids. Engineers are coping the looks of the Omnia fly’s eardrum and implanted it into humans as a microphone to better directional hearing.
