There is so much to say about this course that I am having difficulty narrowing down this post, so I have created a bullet list of the most interesting points I have gathered to help me summarize this awesome experience!

• Probably the most important ideas that I am taking away from this class is how incredibly integrated biology really is.  I have long been aware that physics is the core science.  If anyone is to really understand biological phenomena, one must possess a basic understand of the laws of physics, forces and their applications.  Every aspect of the innovations inspired by nature (mainly insects) has its foundation in physics.  Hidden in the laws of physics are coulomb's forces which guide the self-assembly of molecules that living systems have managed to manipulate into amazing polymers that are both strong and flexible and the same time.
  
  This is such an important field that I found several universities that offer Master's programs in biomimetics and bio-materials.  This is something that I can encourage my own students to pursue in their college education.
  

I found this really cool graphic posted on Earth Weekly website that summarizes the ideas expressed by Janine Benyus, a science writer whose TED TALKS on Biomimicry were featured in this course and mentioned in previous blog posts.  If I could find ONE GRAPHIC that summarizes the materials covered in this course, it is represented well here.

Image:  http://oyeta936.com/2012/04/

I plan on using this graphic in my classroom to illustrate to my students the interdisciplinary nature of biology and the importance of design influenced by chemistry and physics in the biological arena.

For those of you following this post, I leave you with a video that summarizes  some of the bioinspired products that are currently on the market.  All of the designs and products were derived by observing patterns found in the natural world

ENJOY!!

Our group analyzed different computer software programs that act as interfaces that link engineering problems with solutions found in the natural world.  The five tools we investigated include:

• Engineering to Biology Thesaurus
• Functional Modeling
• BIDLab
• Bio-Design Cube
• Systems View

Our group decided that the two most user-friendly and intuitive tools included the EBT (engineering to Biology thesaurus) and the BIDlab.  I just happened to be assigned the BIDLab and have included a description of this awesome new tool

Just a note:  these tools all seem to incorporate the emerging technology of artificial intelligence.  I think you will enjoy the video clips included in this post.

Keywords Associated with this Tool:
biomimetic design, biologically inspired design, conceptual design, creativity and concept generation

Introduction:

BIDLab™, or the Biomimetics for Innovation and Design Laboratory, is an affiliation of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto.  Biomimetic design utilizes a myriad of biological models, derived from natural systems, to solve engineering problems.  Biological phenomena provide potential mechanisms that can be used in engineering to develop efficient, sustainable practices in engineering design.  BIOLab™was designed as a tool to help engineers, who may possess limited knowledge regarding biological phenomena, conduct meaningful data-mining sessions regarding biological processes specifically related to the engineering problem they are attempting to resolve. (Nagel, 2008). The recent increase in the popularity of bioinspired engineering has placed demands on engineers who lack training in the biological arena.  Engineers who lack biological training often experience:
problems deciding which biological phenomena are most relevant to their engineering issue
an overwhelming amount of matches to their query that may or may not be relevant.
language/terminology without quick links to paired engineering concepts.  (Shu, 2014).
    
BIDLab™ provides engineers a tool that mines biological phenomena related to an engineering problem to produce a set of keywords specifically related to the query.



Description of the tool:
BIDLab™ provides engineers a tool that systematically maps/pairs engineering terms with biologically meaningful keywords using an online version of a textbook , Life, The Science of Biology, 6th Edition. W. H. Freeman & Company (Hoeller, 2012; Purves, 2000).

• How does it work?

This tool helps engineers isolate relevant biological phenomena associated with their engineering problem utilizing natural language processing (NLP).  NLP is a field of computer science, artificial intelligence, and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages. As such, NLP is related to the area of human–computer interaction and is as an aid to develop appropriate, meaningful analogies when the person initiating the query possesses limited knowledge about the phenomenon.  In other words, the goal of this tool is to develop analogies for the engineer that accurately transfer/pair the biological knowledge with the technical/engineering problem while at the same time avoiding the LITERAL and/or NON-INTUITIVE meaning.  In other words, the tool will “think” for you, delving deeper into the meanings of keywords and tailor the query for the investigator. (Wikipedia, 2014).   (Here is a link to a Tara Mathew’s blog site; she is a human-computer interactions expert who is working with BIDLab™).

http://www.swets.com/blog/natural-language-processing-nlp-and-academic-literature-search-part-i#.U-ORBEip2TI

An example of how this tool works is provided by research performed by Mak and Shu.  Say for, for example, a group of engineers is looking for a method to clean textiles without the use of water, solvents or detergents.   The students were provided this prompt:

• "Barriers and local agents defend the body – skin is a primary innate defense against invasion. The bacteria and fungi that normally live and reproduce in great numbers on our body surfaces without causing disease are referred to as normal flora. These natural occupants of our bodies compete with pathogens for space and nutrients, so normal flora are a form of innate defense."

When key words or phrases from the research prompt are entered as a query search in BIDLab™, the following chart may be generated that organizes information into a visual that guide’s the engineer’s research: (Cheong, 2014)

Image:  Zygote Quarterly, Fall 2012)

Important Features in the Design of the Tool
The BIDlab™ computer program organizes the pairing of biological to engineering information into four main levels:
• anomaly, where the biological concepts are not properly understood or the students fixated on particular words without relating to the strategy described in the biological extracts
biological transfer, where the designers are fixated on the biological actors at the expense of exploring the biological strategy
• literal implementation, in which both the biological strategy and the biological actors are carried over into the technical design
• strategic analogy, based on an abstraction of the principles derived from the biological phenomena

As mentioned before, the goal is to “think” for the researcher so that those engineers who lack intimate knowledge of biological processes are provided meaningful visuals that will minimize wasted time on literal, non-meaningful information.  The program develops what is termed as a 
“causal template”  that relates the actions of on object on another.  The steps followed in developing this causal template are outlined below:  (Shu, Nagle, 2008)


What is the desired function associated with the problem? What is the corresponding biological function?
    • What does the biological function act on (object A)?
    • What is the precedent function that allows or enables the desired function?
What initiates the precedent function (the subject) and what does the subject act on? (object B)

Once entered, the computer program generates an image or flowchart that simplifies abstract concepts and helps improve understanding of the biological concepts associated with the design.

Who Developed the program?

This programming software is being developed by Prof. Li Shu and her team at the Biomimetic for Innovation and Design Laboratory (BIDLab), University of Toronto. (http://www.mie. utoronto.ca/labs/bidlab/).  Professor Shu obtained graduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in the fields of human-computer interaction in computer-aided design (SM) and design for remanufacture as an approach to environmentally responsible product design (PhD).



From what you can gather from the description what are some of the steps that have to be followed when using this tool?
The first step is to identify a biological phenomenon with a clear cause and effect relationship.  An example of this is provided below from a research paper by Mak and Shu (2008):

•  “Fish can extract an adequate supply of oxygen from meager environmental sources by maximizing the surface area for diffusion, minimizing the path length for diffusion, and maximizing oxygen extraction efficiency by means of constant, unidirectional, countercurrent flow of blood and water over opposite sides of their gas exchange surfaces.”

The goal of the BIDLab™ program is to extract relationships and terms from this phenomenon that is useful to the engineer.  Here is what Dr. Shu’s team extracted from the above biological phenomenon:

• ‘‘maximize the surface area of the gas exchange surfaces to maximize the removal of oxygen from the environment.’’

The program would then generate cause and relationships using key terms from the query.  Here are the top four ENGINEERING applications from a list of 10 that the team identified from the initial paragraph:

 1. Maximize surface area  of gas exchange surfaces  to maximize removal of oxygen  from the environment .
2. Maximize surface area  of gas exchange surfaces  to
maximize removal of carbon dioxide  from blood .
3. Maximize flow  of blood and water  to maximize
removal of oxygen  from water .
 4. Maximize the efficiency  of gas exchange surfaces  to
maximize removal of oxygen  from meager environmental
sources .

The goal is to create a diagram with some sort of flowchart/heirarchy of relationship that only includes relevant terms with appropriate relatedness.  Here is an example chart generated from this query:

Do you think it would be helpful if you ever had to do a bioinspiration project?

I believe this could be helpful for me in the in the reverse method I presented above.  In other words, I am biology heavy and by reversing the direction of information flow,  I would be able to obtain more technical terms associated with the biological phenomena.  For example, if I entered terms like osmosis and membranes I should be able to extract engineering terms like pressure, work, fluid dynamics, ect.  What I like most about this program is the visual aspect.  The goal of this tool is to create visual flowcharts of information that help novices understand material in a new knowledge domain. Illustrations can simplify complex information and clarify abstract concepts to aid in comprehension and visualization.  (BIDLab online website).


Personal Note:

There are few ideas that ran through my mind when I researched this tool.
First, I can clearly see that engineering students will be required to take some form of biology as part of their undergraduate requirements.  I had a student who graduated 2nd in his class, completed three calculus courses and every  AP science class EXCEPT AP BIOLOGY!!.  I knew he wanted to attend MIT and major in engineering and I pleaded with him to take AP Biology so that he could effectively communicate with members of his freshmen research team who have surely taken AP Biology in high school.  He made it to the final interviews and the fact that he didn’t have AP biology played a major role in the decline of his application.
Secondly, this exploration of artificial intelligence reminded me of a video that I show my AP biology students the first week of class.  Dr. Shu’s team explores the interface between human and computers, identifying key terms and pairing meaning in an“informed” way.  In my class, we explore what it means to be alive, the characteristics of living organisms.  The video is from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, where DATA is on trial for his live.  If you don’t know, DATA is a machine.  A robot that is an extreme and ultimate example of artificial intelligence in action.  I think you might enjoy showing this to your class if you teach biology and would like some interesting food for thought when you discuss the characteristics of life!!

Is Data Alive

Sources:

Cheong, H., Chiu, I., Shu, L. H., Stone, R. B., & McAdams, D. A. (2011). Biologically Meaningful Keywords for Functional Terms of the Functional Basis. Journal of Mechanical Design, 133(2), 021007. doi:10.1115/1.4003249

"Faculty." Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2014. <http://www.mie.utoronto.ca/faculty/profile.php?id=41>.

Hoeller, Norbert. "Developing Cross-Domain Analogies Using Natural-Language Sources." Zygote Quarterly 1 Sept. 2012: 131-44.


Mak, T. W., and Shu, L. H., “Using Descriptions of Biological Phenomena for Idea Generation,” Research in Engineering Design,  19(1), pp. 21–28.  (2008).

Nagel, R. L., Midha, P. A., Tinsley, A., Stone, R. B., McAdams, D. A., and Shu, L. H., “Exploring the Use of Functional Models in Biomimetic Conceptual Design,” Journal of Mechanical Design, 130(12), p. 121-122. (2008)

"Outline of Natural Language Processing." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 July 2014. Web. 05 Aug. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_natural_language_processing>.

Purves. (2000). Life, The Science of Biology, 6th Edition. W. H. Freeman & Company

Shu, Cheong. "Retrieving Causally Related Functions From Natural-Language Text for Biomimetic Design." Journal of Mechanical Design 136.8 (2014): 1-10. Print.

I would like to sum up this week's readings and discussion as a "TREE-HUGGERS BEWARE" forum.  I, myself, can be unrealistic when it comes to sustainable practices.  Good intentions go nowhere unless money is to be made in the processes.  There is no way sustainable manufacturing will ever take off if there are no realistic profit gains for the investor.  I am not too sure about the DaVinci Index and whether or not this new market measurement is accurate or not at defining the risks associated with investing on the pubic domain, but I have posted here a summary of this market measuring tool.  You be the judge:

HERE IS A VIDEO CLIP I FOUND THAT DISCUSSES THIS NEW MARKET ON THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE...INTERESTING BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE OF BIO TECHNOLOGY

The first clip is from our lecture readings and is delivered by Lynn Reaser, chief economic adviser for Nazarene University.    After viewing these economic videos, I recognize the  need fore science-trained economic advisers, business leaders and politicians if we are ever to successfully undergo a paradigm shift in our thinking to a more sustainable approach.

The video clip talks about how the investors are now interested in the specialist fund market.  I must admit that I don't know anything about the stock market and how the people who develop the technology convince investors to "put their money where the mouth is." 
I find it sometimes "depressing" when one realizes that unless money is to be made, doing the right thing for the environment doesn't mean the technology will fly.  There was discussion in our group live session as to whether or not a science class, such as this technology course, should include a section about the market aspect associate with implement sustainable technology.  I believe at the graduate level this SHOULD be included.  This is a market-driven society; engineers can no longer work in isolation in the lab.  No other time in history has the scientist been keenly aware of the limited nature of resources while at the same time intimately associated with funding and the commercial pressures of a capitalistic market.  I say yes, we should include a discussion on the business side of science.

To sum up this week's discussion about the market, I recommend a controversial, yet entertaining book by Michael Crichton, called NEXT.  Although the book focuses on mainly molecular biology, I think the book demonstrates the pressures scientists experience and the desperate nature of securing funds for research. 

One final thought I had after completing this week's activities.  I recall an old movie series called DUNE (see movie trailors on YouTube.)  For those of you too young to remember, this movie is based on the premise that humans have destroyed Earth by reckless use of resources (sounds familiar).  Humans travel space in  search of suitable planet.  The paradigm shift in the movie is that all of the business and political leaders are ecologists!!  How refreshing...thought this was interesting way to end this week's discussion.  Imagine that, an ecologist IN CHARGE!!  :)

My glossary term research, the Silk Pavilion, truly was an exercise in the cross-disciplinary nature of technology based on bio-inspiration.  If you go back to my previous post (right before this one) you will find the video-clip that shows the construction of the silk pavilion at MIT in a fast-forward version, from start to finish.  One can't help realize how much collaboration occurred between scientists and artist of all disciplines.  I believe the selections of the glossary terms this week effectively explored the cross-disciplinary nature of bio-inspired technology.

Michael Pawlyn's video clip and interview article is worth a look.  For anyone who doesn't have a clue as to what bio-inspired architecture encompasses, take a look at the following video clips.  These are excellent introductions to the field of bio-inspired architecture and I encourage you to watch these!!

Video 1: 
Biomimicry in Architecture

If you watch these two videos, particularly the second, I believe you will get the idea of the power of bio-design.


The take home message for me in this week's activity is represented by Michael Pawlin's Sahara Forest Project.  The project uses bio-inspired design to help restore vegetation in the Fertile Crescent region that was once lush forest, but is now desert.  This man-made disaster would take infinitely large amounts of energy to reverse using old, fossil fuel technologies.  Michael Pawlin's team offers low cost solutions to restorative ecology utilized nature's laws...low cost, very efficient.

Here are the 10 simple solutions that Micheal Pawilin's team posted on their website.  I think these bullets pretty much sum up modules 1-7 in a nutshell!!

The Sahara Forest Project in 10 sentences
1. The Sahara Forest Project (SFP) is a combination of environmental technologies to enable restorative growth, defined as revegetation and creation of green jobs through profitable production of food, freshwater, biofuels and electricity.
2. While society still strives to realize that sustainable solutions must replace the traditional extractive use of resources, the Sahara Forest Project demonstrates the potential for restorative practices.
3. SFP is designed to utilize what we have enough of to produce what we need more of, using deserts, saltwater and CO2 to produce food, water and energy.
4. The Sahara Forest Projects is not too good to be true and it is not rocket science, but an innovative solution founded on the premises that we need a more holistic approach towards tackling challenges related to energy, food and water security.
5. The Sahara Forest Project is a unique combination of existing low-tech environmental solutions based on tested principles that are combined to create highly desirable synergies.
6. Sahara Forest Project combines solar thermal technologies with technologies for saltwater evaporation, condensation of freshwater and modern production of food and biomass without displacing existing agriculture or natural vegetation.
7. The best physical locations for a SFP-facility are low-lying, arid and sunny areas that normally has little agricultural activity or natural vegetation.
8. A single SFP-facility with 50 MW of concentrated solar power and 50 ha of seawater greenhouses would annually produce 34,000 tons of vegetables, employ over 800 people, export 155 GWh of electricity and sequester more than 8,250 tons of CO2.
9. By establishing a commercial viable way to bring saltwater into the desert The Sahara Forest Project works as an enabling technology, allowing for a wide variety of businesses to develop alongside it.
10. SFP makes it possible to go green by black numbers at the bottom-line, as the project profitably creates much needed resources while providing ecosystem-services.

Number 10 from above is the topic of the next blog post (we are already into the last module where we discuss the reality of technology and the capitalistic market..good ideas aren't always practical or acce

Check out this amazing technology.  This MIT project pairs mathematical statistics with animal behavior, bio-production of silk fibers, 3-D printing and ecology all in one.  READ AND BE AMAZED like I was when I did the research.  Completely integrative engineering at its best...

Images: http://www.archdaily.com/384271/silk-pavilion-mit-media-lab/

KEY TERMS:  Robotic Swarm Printing, Biological Swarm Manufacturing


Description of the inspiration from nature:

The silk pavilion constructed at MIT is truly an example of integrative, cutting edge architectural design that incorporates robotics, swarm behavior, materials processing and sustainability.  The inspiration for the pavilion’s construction was derived from the silkworm’s cocoon construction.  Specifically, the MIT team investigated the process of silk deposition by the silkworm species Bombyx mori.  Silkworm behavior was used to model the construction of scaffolding produced by  3-D printers, that would create platforms condusive to building architectural forms composed of biological materials.

Below is a picture of the "cable-bot" used to perform 3-D printing manufacturing, using suspended cable technology:

Image:  http://www.archdaily.com/384271/silk-pavilion-mit-media-lab/


Silkworms by nature are characterized as :

• "multi-nodal spinning organisms’, with relatively low levels of communication and interaction, silkworms are not bound by social hierarchical structures, but are extremely adaptable to spatial parameters and environmental factors in their immediate surroundings.” (Oxman, 2014)

The MIT team utilized the swarm behavior to create platforms separated at just the right distance with specific light conditions to create a structure composed completely of biological material.  The team created scaffolds based on the spatial/nodal behavior of the silkworms.  They used 3-D printing technology (The SpiderBot and CableBot), both developed by the Mediated Matter group at MIT, that are cable-suspended robotic 3D printing platforms.  The idea is to combine robotic, additive manufacturing of some platform that will  guide the production of a “tunable” biological material, like silk, to mimic the layering and density that the natural structure, such as a cocoon, possess.


Description of the bioinspired architectural structure or feature:

The structure of the silkworm pavilion is based on the swarm behavior of colonies of Bombyx mori.  The size a shape of the 3-D scaffolds used to guide silk deposition took advantage of swarm behaviors of silkworms as well as their individual cocoon production. 

The platforms shown above were fabricated using 3D printers that digitally fabricated a 
loose scaffold” that allowed to silkworms flexibility to respond to the environment.  Spacing of the scaffolds and light was critical in guiding the deposition of silk in such a way as to create a unified, three dimensional dome.  External factors such as light and temperature were  In the case of the Silk Pavilion, however, this was accomplished by digitally generating only the overall scaffold strategy and leaving the local control and micro-structural fabrication to silkworms controlled through external factors such as changing space configuration, light and temperature.  The following excerpt from the research team describes how each platform scaffold allowed the insect to respond to external environmental conditions, which provided “for dynamic control factors that can enable real-time feedback between existing and desired spinning patterns.” (Stot, 2013).

• "A season-specific sun-path diagram mapping solar trajectories in space dictated the location,size and density of apertures within the structure in order to lock in rays of natural light entering the pavilion from the south and east elevations, thereby guiding the movement of the silkworms across the structure’s surface area. (Oxman, 2013).

 To make sense of this quote , the following diagram from the MIT blog site provides a good visual of how local temperature and lighting condition along the platform surface guided the silkworm deposition.

 Image: http://www.archdaily.com/384271/silk-pavilion-mit-media-lab/

 If you follow the diagram above from top left, counterclockwise to upper right and then lower right, you can see the scaffold, the heat intensive areas, and then finally the silk structure that was woven by the silkworms guided by the underlying scaffold. 

Pictured below is the final product that is on display at MIT:

Images: http://matter.media.mit.edu/environments/details/silk-pavillion#prettyPhoto[]/9/.           The image on the right is from inside the pavillion looking up. Note the light coming in (the light angle interacted with the original scaffolding material to induce specific heating and lighting conditions.)

Is the new/future technology a societal win in your opinion?

This is definitely a societal win for two main reasons:

• First, by creating light weight, minimal scaffolds that will maximize the arrangement of soft-flexible bioloigcal material, one reduced the amount of waste and maximized the strength and integrity of the final product.  The entire process models the arrangment of fibers in a natural setting.
• The use of biological materials to create a structure reduces the need for high pressure, high temperature, wasteful manufacturing; this is a closed loop manufacturing process since the main material used to create the structure is produced by a living organisms and is biodegradable.

Is this technology biomimicry or bioinspiration?

I believe this an example of biomimiciry AND bioinspration.  The silkworms are depositing their material in a scafflolding platform that mimics the spacing, temperature and lighting conditions that encourage the swarm-silk structure that would occur naturally.  This is biomimcry.  But normally the larvae spin individual cocoons that arent' necessarily connected by sheets.  The encouragment of this sheet-like silk production as is seen the dome created at MIT is an example of bioinspired design as the animals were removed after the silk layer was complete.

Here is a excellent video Summing up the entire process from design, scaffolding, silk production and finished product.

MIT VIDEO OF ENTIRE CONSTRUCTION OF SILK PAVILLION. EXCELLENT VIEWING

I think this glossary entry truly tied in the integrative nature of this course.  I am blown away by this video and how mathematics, art, engineering, animal behavior, chemistry, computer programing..etc...all tie together!! 


SOURCES:

Oxman, N., Duro-Royo, J., Keating, S., Peters, B. and Tsai, E. (2014), Towards Robotic Swarm Printing. Archit Design, 84: 108–115. doi: 10.1002/ad.1764

Oxman,N., Jared Laucks, Markus Kayser, Carlos David Gonzalez Uribe, Jorge
Duro-Royo.  Biological Computation for Digital Design and Fabrication: A biologically-informed finite element approach to structural performance and material optimization of robotically deposited fibre structures. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Media Lab, Mediated Matter, USA. 2013 http://matter.media.mit.edu
1neri@mit.edu, 2jlaucks@mit.edu, 3m_kayser@mit.edu, 4cdgu@mit.edu, 5j_duro@mit.edu

Stott, Rory. "Silk Pavilion / MIT Media Lab" 06 Jun 2013. ArchDaily. Accessed 26 Jul 2014. <http://www.archdaily.com/?p=384271>


Tero, A., S. Takagi, et al. (2010). “Rules for biologically inspired adaptive network design.” Science Signaling 327(5964): 439.

Here is the list of terms/concepts investigated by our group associated with this week's topic:  "Bio-inspired architecture."  I will post my full glossary term next.  VERY COOL..check these out..they are actually being done and / or are examples of actual technology.

The silk pavilion was my post...check out my next blog for the complete research on the silk pavilion. VERY COOL APPLICATION of all ideas from modlules 1-6!!! especially ties in animal behavior with engineering! see you next time!!

The readings in this week's lesson focused on the use of biological models in the design of efficient buildings (than run on principles derived from nature).  I was to design a residential building using some sort of bio inspired principles.  My project focused on the construction of a home that uses the Fibonacci arrangement of solar panels that maximize the capture of solar energy at all angles during the sun's daily cycle.  This technology is actually being used today.  I also used technology to light the home based on the structure of fireflies.  This technology is actually in place today.  What is conceptual is the use of artificial stomata that open and close in response to the environment; this technology is being investigated and as far as I know is not actually in use today.  Please check out my house design!!  This was an awesome exercise that pretty much tied in all of our previous units; truly build upon previous knowledge gained from DAY 1 in this course!

Introduction:

I originally planned on designing my home for the midwest region but decided to design a home with feature that could be used in any temperature climate, excluding the rigid cold arctic regions.  I am really interested in the area of biomimetic architecture focsed on the design of the homes exterior walls and the geometry associated with the orientation of the exterior wall component that maximizes solar energ gain similar to the orientation of leaves on a tree.  One of my AP Biology students did his seminar a few years back on a study done by a young high school student regarding placement of solar panels.  He placed conventional solar panels in a FIBANACI sequence orientation, following the leave pattern arrangment of a tree, and had an average 30% increase is the solar energy gained from a linear arrangment of the same panels.  I found this fascinating!!  Here is a link to a summary of the article explaining this 13 year-old's project.

Here is my dream house from exterior to interior:

EXTERIOR

The exterior of the home will consitst of panels of "Living skin" construction oriented in a configuration that will maximize solar gain but minimize heat gain by using the natural angles of the sun calculated using algorithms derived from actual tree leaf configuratins.  (SEE SECTION ON LIVING SKIN BELOW).  I found a prototype home that was build in Spain the utilizes this type of "Fibonacci" arrangment of the buildings exterior. 

A temporary, residential-scale building, located at Port Olympic is 1,650-square-foot "Endesa Pavilion" designed by students and faculty from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) with which Endesa has collaborated on several projects regarding smart energy management. Architect Rodrigo Rubio, who led the IAAC team, says the partnership resonates with the local university’s research of information and responsive technologies.

Some of those digital tools were responsible for the Endesa Pavilion’s accordion-like shape. The IAAC designers determined sun angles at Port Olympic and fed them into parametric design software. They also directed the algorithm to shape the building for maximum photovoltaic production, without sacrificing daylight penetration or solar thermal gain. Made mostly of plywood, the building was fabricated in IAAC’s digital production laboratory; pre-assembly and construction took five weeks. The Endesa Pavilion is actually a research prototype of a new solar-optimized prefabricated skin system . The exterior "skin" consists of  a series of mass-customized modules, each of which includes a PV-clad side and at least one surface into which a window is inserted. The various surface areas and angles optimize both PV exposure and passive solar performance. “A wooden skin based on digitally designed components, parametrically adapted to their different orientations, behaves in the same way a tree’s leaves do. The components generate their own energy, and at the same time produce a micro-climate by controlling shadows, ventilation, [and] light.” 1

Here are a few photos of the prototype home exterior.  For a complete slideshow of photos, click here:

All images:  Photo © Adrià Goula)

The wooden panels are composed of simple, recycled plywood which heats and cools according to the sun's angle in such as way as to maximize light capture but minimize heat gain.  I would like to add living skin technology to the walls in the home above, but keep the ARRANGEMENT of the exterior the same.



Living Skin Technology

One of our group members mentioned living wall technologies in this week's discussion thread.  I found some research done on living wall exterioriors  that include artificial stomata that control the ventialation and cooling of the home similar to the way a plant cools itself via evaporative cooling by transpiration.  The project is being developed in CHINA as a way of minimizing carbon dioxide emissions and increasing air purification.  Research on this system is underway in a project termed Habitat 2020.  This proejct is  a future forward example of biomimetic architecture hat fuses high-tech ideas with basic cellular functions to create ‘living’ structures that operate like natural organisms. This nature-inspired approach to living looks at the urban landscape as a dynamic and ever-evolving ecosystem.2  The pictures below illustrate the stomatal openings.  These openngs are composed of flexible "smart" metal material that expand, flex, and contract in response to changing external environmental conditions.  (See Figures below):

These artificial stomata are composed of composite metals that expand and contract in response to temperature and humidity changes..see discussion below of research done on by the research team Yang and Benjamen.

Images: http://inhabitat.com/habitat-2020-off-the-grid-future-abode/attachment/12388/

The woman picture in the figure to the left is using the energy captured in the solar material (white, glass-like paneling underneath the artificial stomata) to turn on lights as needed.

Buildings that breath:
 Two architects from Columbia Uniersity, Soo-in Yang and David Benjamin, whose company is called " The Living, have developed a prototype wall that “breathes.” Exploringthe idea of architecture that responds to internal or external conditions with movement, Yang and Benjamin came across shape memory alloy technology (SMA)—metals that temporarily change their shape at certain temperatures. The team built a prototype window that, on exposure to certain levels of CO2, automatically opens to allow fresh air to flow in. The window can be surprisingly thin, and free of bulky mechanisms. SMA wires are embedded in a pliable transparent plastic and connected to carbon dioxide sensors. When CO2 reaches a certain level, the wires contract, pulling open slits in the polymer. “Something like CO2 is not immediately visible and you cannot smell it, but
it is important to the environment of a room,” says Benjamin. “Too much CO2 makes a room stuffy.” 3  Their materials research holds promise for the stomate technology; pairing sensors with electrical conductive material so that the building reacts in "real-time" to environmental changes.

• "By combining the polymer with thin film photovoltaic strips, they could also make the skin self-powering. Benjamin has boundless optimism for this line of inquiry: “We do really think that people will fall in love with this idea of bringing architecture to life, and that it may capture the imagination of the general public in the way that it captured ours.”3

New developments in humidity sensitive "artificial" plant sensors offers a real material that can respond to environmental changes similar to plants.  In a recent article entitled Improving on nature: light-driven biomimetic actuators, a research team from China developed a material that responds to light and temperature changes similar to a plant:

• "Highly efficient humidity-dependent motions in plants, such as the opening of seed pods or pine cones, has inspired the fabrication of various humidity-driven artificial actuators. However, humidity is difficult to precisely control in manipulating actuator motion. Light-driven actuators, on the other hand, would be much easier to use, because light can be controlled remotely and precisely."5

This research team developed a graphene oxide material that responds to small changes in humidity and temperature like a plant.  This material can be used to coat the artificial stomata, making them responsive to tiny changes in humidity.  The problem arises in the cost of producing this type of material.  Sounds great, but expensive manufacturing costs must be considered when designing a home with this fine-tuned capability.  Bottom line, the home exterior wall will respond to environmental changes, allow Co2 out, oxygen in and cool the home by controlling water movement into and out of the house, cooling the surfaces as the water evaporates.


Living Lights 

To maximize the internal light of my home, I would like to combine two biomimetic technologies.  The first technology derives its inspiration from fireflies.  LED’s (light emitting diodes) are the top end of sustainable lighting  fixtures –  They have long life spans, are durable, mercury free and non-heat producing. LED’s are the most energy efficient bulbs on the market today, yet their high initial cost (even though over time is recouped due to minimal maintenance and long working life) has slowed their uptak. Biomimicry offers an alternative to this problem.  Researchers have now found a way to drastically reduce the cost of LED bulbs by mimicking the internal structure of a fireflies light emitting abdomen.4 (See figure below)

By creating a highly reflective surface, such as the surface formed from the cutin of the insect, brighter light can be created from very low intensity inputs simply by maximizing the reflectivity of incoming light on a perfectly curved, reflective surface.  These surfaces can be incorporated with light fixtures that maximize the light obtained from low level inputs.

Here is a cool video clip explaining the development of firefly photonics and LED technology. The first three minutes of the video clip discuss the technology..COOL COOL COOL

Sources:

1"Best of Both Worlds." - Best Green Houses. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Aug. 2014. <http://greensource.construction.com/features/bestgreenhouses/2012/10/1210-Best-of-Both-Worlds.asp>

2"HABITAT 2020: Future Smart ‘Living’ Architecture." Inhabitat Sustainable Design Innovation Eco Architecture Green Building HABITAT 2020 Future Smart Living Architecture Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Aug. 2014. <http://inhabitat.com/habitat-2020-off-the-grid-future-abode/>.

3"Living Light: Revealing Air Quality through an Architectural Media Pavilion - Information Aesthetics." Living Light: Revealing Air Quality through an Architectural Media Pavilion - Information Aesthetics. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Aug. 2014. <http://infosthetics.com/archives/2009/10/living_light.html>.

4"A Very Merry Bioluminescent Christmas." Littlegreenseed.com. N.p., 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 04 Aug. 2014. <http://littlegreenseed.wordpress.com/category/biomimicry/>.

5Ji, M., Jiang, N., Chang, J. and Sun, J. (2014), Near-Infrared Light-Driven, Highly Efficient Bilayer Actuators Based on Polydopamine-Modified Reduced Graphene Oxide. Adv. Funct. Mater.. doi: 10.1002/adfm.201401011

I am fortunate enough to teach both AP Biology and chemistry.  In the AP Biology curriculum, self-assembly is part of the conversation and I had some background on the chemical nature of self-assembly and chemical evolution (simple to complex) molecules.  What was VERY COOL was seeing how the effects of the nanoscale affect the behavior of large groups of organisms.  Who would have thought a few simple rules can control the behavior of 10,00 birds swarming together?  I was reminded of the famous mathematician, John Nash, from the movie "Beautiful Minds", where Nash used algorithms developed by watching pigeon behavior to construct a statistics program that models the behavior of larger systems.  Here is a link to the John Nash Story:

The flocking behavior exercise I performed with my students is something I hope to use in my classroom.  I admit that I was completely shocked when a two simple rules created a flocking response that was predictable.  In the video below, my students followed a simple rule:  Keep yourself between predator A and protector B, and the flock will implode on itself.  This is indeed what occurred and I couldn't believe it!  See video below:

How do natural flocks maintain organization when there is clearly no leader?  Are the laws of behavior governed by the laws of physics and chemistry?  Compare my students to an actual flock of starlings.. COOL COOL VIDEO...who's the leader?  See video clip below:

I used only 13 students and the flock almost immediately imploded just by changing one simple rule (previously, the students lined up with the   YOU---Protector B------Predator A, and the flock did NOT implode.

As far as natural rules, I wonder if the magnetic fields of atoms or groups of atoms in molecules play roles in ultimately determining behavior of organisms on a macroscopic level. How does an animal know what the rules are?  How do ants cooperate without being taught.  There is a video I show my chemistry students and AP biology kids about how molecules self-assemble to create complex patterns following the rules of magnetism.  Here is a link to the self assembly lab at MIT where the researches discuss self assembly and its role in future engineering manufacturing.  I show this to my students to tie in ideas like Coulomb's law, and the self assembly of molecules based on charges and magnetic fields:

Here is a link to MIT's self-assembly lab website.  There is a video that explains the cross-disciplinary nature of the department.  The Self-Assembly Lab at MIT is a cross-disciplinary research lab composed of designers, scientists (of all fields) and engineers inventing self-assembly technologies aimed at re- imagining the processes of construction, manufacturing and infrastructure in the built environment.  The team uses algorithms derived from patterns derived from nature, from the chemical nature of molecules to flocking behavior of animals:

Is it, then, that the simple rules that govern flock behavior and any type of macroscopic response controlled by the laws of physics.  For those of you who would like to try a computer program that utilized algorithms derived from rules generated by natural systems, check out this NETLOGO website and play around with the  flocking rules.  The same behavior was demonstrated by my students using simple rules, similar to the ones mentioned in this program.
COOL COOL COOL!

Finally, this video by Skylar Tidbits seems to me to tie in this week's information in an intuitive way.  This TED TALKS focuses on the question:  "Can we make things that make themselves? "  I recommend that anyone interested in learning more about the application of self-assembly technology derived from natural algorithms watch this clip.  COOL SUMMARY OF THIS WEEK'S INFO!!

This is the full post of my individual glossary term for this week.  The links are really, really cool and I recommend you watch the video clips.  I do a slime mold lab in my AP Biology class.  This research gave me some very, very interesting facts and applications that I can use in my class.  The fact that slime molds aren't molds at all; their amazing life cycles are worth the research.  Please take time to look at the videos..COOL STUFF!!

Key Concepts:

• Inspiring organism:  Physarum polycephalum
• Applications of Technology: Energy-efficient transportation and communication networks.
• Industrial Sector Interested in technology:   Transportation, Communication, Computer Science, Networks
  • Source:  Asknature.org

Description of the inspiration from nature
Module 6 focuses on the biological mechanisms controlling basic "rules" of behavior that are responsible for the coordinated  "net movement" of large groups of organisms.  This glossary term takes the "group" behavior to a more molecular level.  Slime molds, formerly classifed as fungi, are simple organisms that consists of an acellular mass of creeping jellylike protoplasm containing nuclei, or a mass of ameboid cells. When it reaches a certain size it forms a large number of spore cases. (Wikipedia, 2014).  SEE FIGURE OF LIFE CYCLE OF SLIME MOLD BELOW:

Image:  McGraw/Hill, INC., 2009


Because of the unique movement and molecular structure, slime molds are now classified as "paraphyletc," that is, having origins in more than one evolutionary clade or group.  Slime molds possess characteristics of both animals and protists.  The "group" behavior associated with slime molds is very unique when compared with the flocking of birds, the swarming of bees or the movment of ant colonies because instead of cooperation between individual organisms, there is cooperation between components of an acellular mass (the plasmodial mass in the diagram above is considered ONE BIG CELL with many nuclei). They spend most of their lives as amoeba-like single cells, but when resources are scarce they converge, joining with other cells to form units that have coordinated functions, as seen in multicellular organisms. When the cells converge into the plasmodial mass, the cell membranes degrade and the move as one unit.

Just like any eukaryotic cell, this acellular "plasmodial mass" contains networks of tubulin, myosin and actin filaments.  (The presence of myosin-like and actin-like filaments are why the slime molds are classified as animal-like).  SEE FIGURE BELOW:

This SEM image of a slime mold shows the network of cytoskeleton composed of polymers of actin-like fibers and intermediate filaments.  These filaments polyermize and depolymerize in response to signal transduction cascades initiated at the cell membrane.  The direction of polymerization of these microtubules control the directional migration of this acellular mass, the same as the movement seen in the "pseudopods" of an amoeba.  SEE ANIMATION BELOW:   In this animation, at minute 0.28, you can see the directional movement of the microtubules.

The movement of the microtubules depends upon the rate of polymerization of the indivudual tubulin monomers (or actin, depending on the filament). 

THE ANIMATION BELOW DEMONSTRATES THE DYNAMIC NATURE OF THE MICROTUBLES WHICH CONTROLS THE DIRECTION MOVEMENT OF THE CYTOPLASM/ In our case, the plasmodial mass of the slime mold.

These animations are intended to provide insight as to how an acellular mass can respond to stimuli, which is a very different concept when comparing the dynamic interactiion between individual organisms within a group, as in the bird flocking activity. Description of the (proposed) bioinspired technology

Coordination is a major challenge for both computational and biological processes. At the molecular level, coordination is required to activate sets of genes that together respond to external conditions (Tero, 2010).  The complex interactions that occur within a cell can be used to create algorithms for efficient movement and the microtubule migration in slime molds provides a platform for studying efficient  transportation.  Organisms have already worked on efficient pathways by natural selection; those organisms that survive have the most efficient mechanisms for obtaining food and therefore live long enough to mate.  Slime molds are unique in that the plasmodial stage forms networks toward food sources quickly via signal transduction cascades initiated at the cell membrane.  Microtuble assemblies respond by polymerizing towards the food source, and depolymerization where no signal is received.  This movement is described in work by Nakagaki:

• "The body shape of the plasmodium resembles an intricate network of tubular components...During locomotion with a speed of 1 cm/h, the size and mesh of tubes evolve depending on the position within the organism. At the frontal part of the plasmodium, small components of the tube are very densely connected and some of the small tubes gradually become thick, while most of them disappear towards the rear." (Nakagaki, 2010)

Research led by two separate teams, one by Andrew Adamasky, and another by T. Nakagaki, suggested that the slime mold migration may provide insight as to the most effective ways of connecting cities via transportation routes. 

• "Physarum maximizes its ability to find food by ‘remembering’ and strengthening the portions of its cytoplasm that connect to active food sources. By rhythmically contracting and expanding its body, Physarum is able to move and grow its body in search of food. When it fails to find food or the food source dries up, Physarum retracts its cytoplasm, leaving behind a trail of slime--essentially marking which pathways are useful and which are dead-ends."  (Adamasky, 2011)

These two reserarch teams used slime mold as the "algorithm maker" to create the simplest network of travel between many points.  They placed oats (food) that represented cities in the pattern the cities would be found on a map.  They then watched as the slimemold formed a network of minimal distance between cities develop.  The videos show real footage from these experiments:

VIDEO 1: SLIME MOLD FINDING SHORTEST PATH IN MAZE

The video is in German, but fast forward towards end..very amazing how the slime mold finds the easiest path.

Video #2:  Slime mold used to map out the TOKYO RAILWAY FINDING SHORTEST NETWORK CONFIGURATION

The figure below illustrates the comparison between the network formed by the slime mold and the actual railway that was constructed as a result of the mold tubular network pattern: (Adamatsky, 2011).

(Images:  2011 EMBO and Macmillan Publishers Limited)

Is the new/future technology a societal win in your opinion? 

This is definitely a societal win.  By using the foraging behavior of the slime mold, having millions of years of evolution to work out the quickest, most effecive mechanisms for obtaining food, we can design transporation networks that will

• minimize fuel costs by creating short, effective routes.
• minimize materials used to create the network (less waste, quickest routes).
• Summary phrase from work by Nagakaki(2010):
  • "By lying only in the shortest route between two food sources, the plasmodium can deliver much of its own body to the food sources, so that the intake of the nutrient is more efficient. Moreover, since the tube is a channel of protoplasmic streaming, the shortest tube leads to efficient transport of protoplasm."

Is this bioinspiration or biomimicry? Why or why not?

Why do I always have trouble with this one. (HA HA)  I am going with bioinspiration here; if you observe the paths of the slime mold and the actual map of the road network, they match almost perfectly.  So in this case, althought the roadways mimic the path created by the living organism, the pathways are not dynamic but fixed (unlike the slime mold's dynamic nature). I would love the hear your feedback on this one. (The ask nature site referred to this as bioinspiration, but the actual roadway in Tokyo pretty much reflects the exact path of the slime mold).

Extension:  In the video below, the slime mold is used to create computer programming models that create provides interfaces between several modules.  THIS IS VERY COOL.  Hope you have time to watch it!!

SLIME MOLD USED TO CREATE COMPUTER PROGRAMS

The slime mold is dosed with colloidal metals that lay pathways.  Once the slime mold dies, the metal pathway network is there and the voltage follows the pathway, connected resisters, ect.  Excellent application of bioinspired engineering.

Sources:

Adamatzky, Andrew, and Ramon Alonso-Sanz. "Rebuilding Iberian Motorways with Slime Mould." Biosystems 105.1 (2011): 89-100

Adamatzky, Andrew, and Jeff Jones. "Road Planning With Slime Mould: If Physarum Built Motorways It Would Route M6/m74 Through Newcastle." International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos 20.10 (2010): 3065

Easley DA, Kleinberg JM (2010) Networks, Crowds, and Markets—Reasoning About a Highly Connected World. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press

Navlakha, Saket, and Ziv Bar-Joseph. "Algorithms in Nature: The Convergence of Systems Biology and Computational Thinking." Molecular Systems Biology 7 (2011)

Tero, A., S. Takagi, T. Saigusa, K. Ito, D. P. Bebber, M. D. Fricker, K. Yumiki, R. Kobayashi, and T. Nakagaki. "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design." Science 327.5964 (2010): 439-42.

"Slime Mold." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 July 2014. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold>

This is a list of the terms assigned to my group this week.  All terms are associated with the self-assembly of components of a living system and /or the application of this type of behavior in the field of technology. 

Boids post by , IB 535 Summer 2014

Posted by Sheila Egan, IB 535, University of Illinois-Champain, Summer 2014

Posted by Jessica Turner, IB 535 University of Illinois-Champaign, Summer 2014

Posted by Eileen Hergenrother, IB 535, University of Illnois-Champain, Summer 2014