Learning from nature

Nature has been designing things for a very long time already and came up with fantastic solutions. Designers can benefit when looking at those examples and keeping their eyes open. Article by Jeremy Faludi on Worldchanging describes different methods and leads the way to more resources about biomimicry.

Here are just the topics of some principles:

The Direct Method: Find an Example

* Define the problem and its context.
* Find organisms with a similar problem & context, see what they do. Find many divergent organisms to see which has the best / most relevant strategy.
* Translate the best strategy to a buildable thing; if necessary, find an expert to help.

The Indirect Method: Use General Principles

* Waste = Food
* Self-assemble, from the ground up
* Evolve solutions, don't plan them
* Relentlessly adjust to the here & now
* Cooperate AND compete, not just one or the other
* Diversify to fill every niche
* Gather energy & materials efficiently
* Optimize the system rather than maximizing components
* The whole is greater than the sum of its parts--design for swarm
* Use minimal energy & materials
* "Don’t foul your nest"
* Organize fractally
* Chemical reactions should be in water at normal temperature & pressure

Vogel's mechanical-engineering-specific principles (summarized):
* Nature's factories produce things much larger, not smaller, than themselves.
* We use metals, nature never does
* Nature makes gradual transitions in structures (curves, density gradients, etc.) rather than sharp corners.
* We make things out of many components, each of which is homogeneous; nature makes things out of fewer components but they vary internally.
* We design for stiffness, nature designs for strength and toughness.
* Our mechanisms have rigid pieces moving on sliding contacts, nature bends/twists/stretches.
* Nature often uses diffusion, surface tension, and laminar flow; we often use gravity, thermal conductivity, and turbulence.
* Our engines are mostly rotary or expansive, nature's are mostly sliding or contracting.
* Nature's engines are isothermal.
* Nature mostly stores mechanical work as elastic energy, sometimes as gravitational potential energy.