What Flies Like a Dragonfly and Swims Like an Eel? Bio-inspired Design Cornerstone Projects

Biologically inspired design is a challenging topic to teach, especially to beginning first year engineering students with no background in engineering skills and analysis. We have incorporated bio-inspired design as a project and successfully run a design challenge with first year engineering students, to present an alternative design process than a traditional Problem Definition > Alternative Solutions > Prototyping > Testing methodology. Students were given a biomimicry presentation by company that researches bio-inspired design solutions and given the opportunity to study technical details of biomimetic aircraft (dragonfly and albatross), to see how technology could be mapped to create biomimetic motion. Students were given small, elastic-band powered “flyers,” which they built and tested, to understand how simple mechanisms could be used to create biomimetic motion. Students were then instructed to study biological means of propulsion through water, and to create a water craft that could travel through water. This successful project resulted in many different designs, illustrating a variety of biological solutions. This paper will discuss a bio-inspired design methodology illustrated with student designs and will discuss lessons learned.