Bio-inspired life-like motile materials systems: Changing the boundaries between living and technical systems in the Anthropocene

Speck, Thomas; Poppinga, Simon; Speck, Olga; Tauber, Falk

doi:10.1177/20530196211039275

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 95 publications

(163 reference statements)

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“…Three cases of the study of biomimetic envelopes are shown in [ 103 ]. The first example is the Flectofin ® , a facade shading system that took as a role model the bird-of-paradise flower ( Strelitzia reginae ).…”

Section: Biomimicry In Responsive Envelopes and Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmentally Responsive Materials for Building Envelopes: A Review on Manufacturing and Biomimicry-Based Approaches

2023

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Buildings must adapt and respond dynamically to their environment to reduce their energy loads and mitigate environmental impacts. Several approaches have addressed responsive behavior in buildings, such as adaptive and biomimetic envelopes. However, biomimetic approaches lack sustainability consideration, as conducted in biomimicry approaches. This study provides a comprehensive review of biomimicry approaches to develop responsive envelopes, aiming to understand the connection between material selection and manufacturing. This review of the last five years of building construction and architecture-related studies consisted of a two-phase search query, including keywords that answered three research questions relating to the biomimicry and biomimetic-based building envelopes and their materials and manufacturing and excluding other non-related industrial sectors. The first phase focused on understanding biomimicry approaches implemented in building envelopes by reviewing the mechanisms, species, functions, strategies, materials, and morphology. The second concerned the case studies relating to biomimicry approaches and envelopes. Results highlighted that most of the existing responsive envelope characteristics are achievable with complex materials requiring manufacturing processes with no environmentally friendly techniques. Additive and controlled subtractive manufacturing processes may improve sustainability, but there is still some challenge to developing materials that fully adapt to large-scale and sustainability needs, leaving a significant gap in this field.

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Section: Biomimicry In Responsive Envelopes and Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmentally Responsive Materials for Building Envelopes: A Review on Manufacturing and Biomimicry-Based Approaches

2023

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“…However, some applications would still necessitate materials or composites that are not easily recyclable. For such systems, materials with features like self-healing or selfhardening for damage avoidance and longer life cycles would be beneficial (Terryn et al, 2017;Markvicka et al, 2018;Li et al, 2019;Meesorn et al, 2019;Terryn et al, 2020;Bai and Shepherd, 2021;Speck et al, 2022). Changing the systematic design into a compartmentalized modular design (Pfeifer et al, 2012;Pfeifer et al, 2007;McKenzie et al, 2018), in which parts can be interchanged or repurposed, would create even more sustainable soft robots.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Early career scientists converse on the future of soft robotics

Tauber

Slesarenko²

2023

Front. Robot. AI

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During the recent decade, we have witnessed an extraordinary flourishing of soft robotics. Rekindled interest in soft robots is partially associated with the advances in manufacturing techniques that enable the fabrication of sophisticated multi-material robotic bodies with dimensions ranging across multiple length scales. In recent manuscripts, a reader might find peculiar-looking soft robots capable of grasping, walking, or swimming. However, the growth in publication numbers does not always reflect the real progress in the field since many manuscripts employ very similar ideas and just tweak soft body geometries. Therefore, we unreservedly agree with the sentiment that future research must move beyond “soft for soft’s sake.” Soft robotics is an undoubtedly fascinating field, but it requires a critical assessment of the limitations and challenges, enabling us to spotlight the areas and directions where soft robots will have the best leverage over their traditional counterparts. In this perspective paper, we discuss the current state of robotic research related to such important aspects as energy autonomy, electronic-free logic, and sustainability. The goal is to critically look at perspectives of soft robotics from two opposite points of view provided by early career researchers and highlight the most promising future direction, that is, in our opinion, the employment of soft robotic technologies for soft bio-inspired artificial organs.

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“…Hinge-less compliant components contribute to the conservation of resources by reducing wear and tear and require little maintenance [ 56 , 57 ].…”

Section: Educational Trail About Biomimeticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hinge-less compliant components contribute to resource conservation by reducing wear and tear [ 56 , 57 ].…”

Section: Educational Trail About Biomimeticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomimetics in Botanical Gardens—Educational Trails and Guided Tours

Speck

2023

Biomimetics

Self Cite

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The first botanical gardens in Europe were established for the study of medicinal, poisonous, and herbal plants by students of medicine or pharmacy at universities. As the natural sciences became increasingly important in the 19th Century, botanical gardens additionally took on the role of public educational institutions. Since then, learning from living nature with the aim of developing technical applications, namely biomimetics, has played a special role in botanical gardens. Sir Joseph Paxton designed rainwater drainage channels in the roof of the Crystal Palace for the London World’s Fair in 1881, having been inspired by the South American giant water lily (Victoria amazonica). The development of the Lotus-Effect® at the Botanical Garden Bonn was inspired by the self-cleaning leaf surfaces of the sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera). At the Botanic Garden Freiburg, a self-sealing foam coating for pneumatic systems was developed based on the self-sealing of the liana stems of the genus Aristolochia. Currently, botanical gardens are both research institutions and places of lifelong learning. Numerous botanical gardens provide biomimetics trails with information panels at each station for self-study and guided biomimetics tours with simple experiments to demonstrate the functional principles transferred from the biological model to the technical application. We present eight information panels suitable for setting up education about biomimetics and simple experiments to support guided garden tours about biomimetics.

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Bio-inspired life-like motile materials systems: Changing the boundaries between living and technical systems in the Anthropocene

Cited by 12 publications

References 95 publications

Environmentally Responsive Materials for Building Envelopes: A Review on Manufacturing and Biomimicry-Based Approaches

Environmentally Responsive Materials for Building Envelopes: A Review on Manufacturing and Biomimicry-Based Approaches

Early career scientists converse on the future of soft robotics

Biomimetics in Botanical Gardens—Educational Trails and Guided Tours

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