biomimicry

Robotic Fish Uses only One Servo

Robotic Fish Uses only One Servo

At the Center for Biorobotics in Estonia, Eszter Ozsvald built a mechanical fish named A.riel that can model the movements of actual fish surprisingly well, and using only one servo inside a carefully made silicon-based mold. It took many iterations before the final product, but found that in the end she could develop the same vortex patterns as actual fish. Her site has extensive documentation on the build process and is definitely worth a look for the mold-making processes alone.

Maple seed-inspired flying vehicle

When we did our Alex Rider contest, one of the kids proposed a tiny spy cam built into a faux maple leaf one could launch with a slingshot. We thought it was a clever idea. Some researchers at the University of Maryland’s Dept. of Aerospace Engineering were similarly inspired by samara seed pods and created […]

Pedaling across the ocean blue

Pedaling across the ocean blue

The latest New Scientist has a piece on Ted Ciamillo, the machinist who invented the hydrospeeder (think: Bondian underwater motorcycle) and the Lunocet (a tail for divers modeled on dolphins). Ciamillo’s latest project is a human-powered mini-sub he plans to use to pedal across the Atlantic: Ciamillo designed his mini-submarine around a larger version of […]

Synchronizing Firefly kit

Synchronizing Firefly kit

Alex Weber, of Tinkerlog, who’s brought us such wonderful projects as the programmable LED (featured in The Best of Instructables) and synchronizing fireflies, now offers kits for both of these projects in his new Tinkerstore. Synchronizing Firefly kit sells for 11.50 Euros (about $14.40) and simulates a firefly with a tiny microcontroller. If put together […]