Cave group - Final Poster

Group Deset POSTER

Marine Group Final Posters

 

Group Desert. Snail info

Group Desert. Form and thermoregulation

Group Forest - Roots

Roots, the underground systems of all plants. They support with water, nutrients and chemicals for protection. Plants can through their root systems work in symbiosis with other organisms.

Fungi root network gives nytrogen and phosphate to trees, which in return gives sugar through their roots to the fungi. This complex symbiosis between a plant and a fungi is called mycorrhiza. Mycorrhiza means “fungus root”, from mykes which means fungus in Greek, and rhiza which means root in Greek.

What we learn from the roots:

Principles of sharing as a tool to use resources efficiently.

Our design question:
Can the root system inspire a design for interfacial connections across borders?

Survival tactics of a Seahorse

The skeletal system of the seahorse consists of stacked rings of bony plates that enclose the spine and serve as protective armor. These plates can compress vertically and slide laterally, providing an effective defense mechanism.

It’s hip to be square if you’re a seahorse—or rather, it has certain adaptive advantages. Cylindrical tails may be much more popular in the animal kingdom, but the seahorse’s bizarre square-prism tail has far better mechanical properties.

“Almost all animal tails have circular or oval cross-sections—but not the seahorse’s. We wondered why,” said Clemson University mechanical engineer Michael Porter. “We found that the squared-shaped tails are better when both grasping and armor are needed.”
Porter’s insights on the virtues of a square tail, published tomorrow in Science, could help engineers design robots that can grip, grab, twist and endure mechanical stress much better than their modern counterparts.

Sources:

https://gizmodo.com/seahorses-square-tails-may-be-the-key-to-building-bette-1715034155

https://wenxinyang.com/seahorse-biomimicry/

Cave group - Exploration

Vertebrate of the year 2013.

The naked mole-rat is our inspiration for the week. It has a lot of characteristics, among others it feels no pain, it is one of two eusocial mammals and it holds the record for the longest living rodent (32 years)!

RAINFOREST: Weaver Ant Nest Building

Weaver ants, also called green ants, can be found in rainforests in Africa, Asia and Australia. These ants are known for their unique nest building. The weaver ant colonies live in trees, and the nests are constructed by the ants by weaving leaves together with larval silk. A colony can consist of up to 500 000 ants and hundreds of nests spread over several adjacent trees. The nests have different purposes, such as nurseries, retreats and outposts. 

The ants have developed an efficient method for nest building and the silk (used as glue) is produced by partly grown ant larvae.

1. The ants pull leaf edges together, often using chains formed by several ants. After the leaves are pulled together, some ants stay to hold the leaves in position.

2. An ant carrying a larva arrives. By gently squeezing the larva, it starts to release silk. The ant waves the larva between the edges, and the silk binds the leaves together.

Source: Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E. (1977). Weaver Ants. Scientific American, p. 146-154. (http://antwiki.org/wiki/images/9/93/Holldobler_B_and_Wilson_1977.pdf)

This video narrated by David Attenborough shows the construction of a nest.