BioInspired! So What? Now What!

"Changing the way we teach engineering students to think about developing products and devices."

"Objectives of Website

The many sources of biological inspiration span all natural structures and organisms and the areas of application reach to all branches of science and engineering. As a result, there are countless research efforts being made, each focusing on a very specified task. The objective of this website is to collect, organize, and categorize all such information into a form that will be useful for both practicing engineers and engineering students that are working in or studying product development. The collected knowledge will appear in two distinct forms.

Database

... still under construction

 Instructional material

The knowledge being gathered here will also be formulated into presentations to be used as instructional material. In order to integrate bio-inspired research into the future of product development, engineering students must be exposed to this knowledge in their undergraduate engineering curriculum. Therefore, many presentations will be developed that cover a variety of aspects of bio-inspired research, such as bio-inspired materials, bio-inspired manufacturing, bio-inspired design concepts, etc. These presentations can then be used as lecture material to cover a section on bio-inspired engineering in a variety of engineering classes, such as those on materials, manufacturing, or design.

Bio-Inspired Design: Artificial Muscles Bio-Inspired Design: Introduction to Subject Bio-Inspired Design: Mobile Robots Bio-Inspired Design: Sensors Bio-Inspired Manufacturing: Concurrent Fabrication and Assembly  Bio-Inspired Manufacturing: Self-Assembly Bio-Inspired Materials: Functionally Graded Materials

Additional information on each of these modules is available on the Instructional material page and presentations can be requested from the authors.