05 February 2009

TED2009 minutes from Erik Hersman: Invent highlights

Erik Hersman is still going strong, through the longest day of TED2009 liveblogging the details, so that Ethan Zuckerman can accept an award in Denver and we still don't miss a moment. Most recently, he's been documenting two of the most momentous talks from the last session, Invent. Here's a bit of his take on Robert Full's talk on gecko-inspired design:

"For TED, they have created a special gecko robot with a tail that does automatic air-righting if it falls when hanging upside down. He’s showing some amazing video of this robot, but even more inpressive video of the real geckos being blown around wind tunnels and on glass surfaces for how htey learned this. There’s even a video of a gecko flying through the air, gliding. Using it’s tail to guide its path through the air."

Erik has also posted a clear breakdown of Shai Agassi's vision of a future with all electric cars. Progress depends on visionary inventors like these.

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19 June 2008

How engineers learn from evolution: Robert Full on TED.com

Link fixed: Insects and animals have evolved some amazing skills -- but, as Robert Full notes, many animals are actually badly engineered. The trick is to copy only what's necessary. He shows how human engineers can learn from animals' tricks. Watch for robots inspired by ants and geckos -- and a key insight into animal movement that Full's team learned from A Bug's Life. (Recorded February 2002 in Monterey, California. Duration: 20:22.)

Watch Robert Full's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances -- including Robert Full's 2005 talk about gecko feet.

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11 April 2008

Biomimicry in National Geographic and on TED.com

This month's National Geographic has a great story on biomimetics, or biomimicry, the art of studying nature's engineering. If you're inspired by this story, check out these TEDTalks for more on biomimicry. Clicking on a name (or an image above) will launch the TEDTalks player >>

+ Scientist Robert Full (whose work with geckos is explored in the National Geographic story) shares his obsession with animal feet

+ Biologist Sheila Patek plays high-speed video that captures some extreme engineering from nature -- the superefficient structures that allows a tiny shrimp to move at hyperspeed

+ Journalist Janine Benyus shares her top 12 designs that we can steal from nature, from self-assembly to self-smoothing paint

+ Oceanographer David Gallo shares some amazing animal abilities that we humans might someday want (couldn't you use a little bioluminescence?)

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21 March 2008

More slo-mo gecko video from Robert Full

Robert Full (watch his TEDTalk on gecko feet) and his team at UC Berkeley have uncovered more oddly-worth-knowing facts about geckos and how they move.

It turns out that, along with their amazing sticky paws, geckos use their tails as a kind of fifth limb to help them balance while they climb walls. The team also filmed geckos in free-fall inside a wind tunnel, and found out that falling geckos use their tails as a rudder to help them fall safely -- along the way, capturing "the most rapid, zero-angular momentum air-righting response yet measured." Watch this video report from New Scientist >>

In the abstract of the paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and online, the team, headed by lead author Ardian Jusufi, writes that these new facts about the gecko's tail

... have provided biological inspiration for the design of an active tail on a climbing robot, and we anticipate their use in small, unmanned gliding vehicles and multisegment spacecraft.

Photos courtesy PNAS/NAS 2008.

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27 November 2007

Secrets of movement, from geckos and roaches: Robert Full on TED.com

Biologist Robert Full shares his fascination with spiny cockroach legs that allow them to scuttle at full speed across loose mesh and gecko feet that have billions of nano-bristles to run straight up walls. His talk, complete with wonderful slow-mo video of cockroach, crab and gecko gaits, explains his goal of creating the perfect robotic "distributed foot." (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, California. Duration: 19:24.)

Watch Robert Full's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Read more about Robert Full on TED.com.

NEW: Read the transcript >>

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14 September 2005

Robot Gets Knocked Down (but it gets up again)

Researchers in Japan have invented a nimble humanoid robot that can regain its own footing after taking a tumble. Its secret lies in letting go of control: Rather than follow a strict set of predetermined rules, it makes on-the-fly adjustments based on body trajectory and momentum.

This approach may sound familiar ... it applies the same type of biomimicry we’ve seen in the work of Torsten Reil (03, TEDGlobal), whose NaturalMotion software allows computer-based characters to respond ‘naturally’ to unpredicted obstacles in a digital environment, and Robert Full (O3, 05), who applies his knowledge of animal feet, legs & motion to make scrambling, climbing, rolling many-legged robots well-suited to exploring new environments.

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