In this, our concluding post leading upwards to Research Expo 2015, Michael Frank as well as Steven Naleway depict the wonders that prevarication at the intersection of biological scientific discipline as well as design.
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| Michael Frank |
“When I outset started inwards Joanna McKittrick’s lab, I was genuinely interested inwards materials science,” said Michael Frank, materials scientific discipline as well as engineering PhD pupil at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. “But she kept proverb to me, ‘When are you lot going to selection your animal?’.”
Everyone inwards the McKittrick lab has to receive got an animate existence – pregnant they should each live studying as well as analyzing the construction as well as mechanical demeanour of natural biological materials similar shells, bones, teeth as well as tusks for blueprint applications.
“Professor McKittrick frequently collaborates amongst Scripps Institution of Oceanography,” said Frank. “We had the chance to participate inwards a query cruise. It was in that location that I met Kirk Sato, who studies bounding main urchins – I lastly had my animal.”
According to Frank, bounding main urchins are fascinating because of their versatile mouthparts – an apparatus termed Aristotle’s Lantern – which allows them to persist at unlike depths.
“Aristotle is known for his philosophy, simply many people don’t know that he too wrote several books almost the natural sciences,” said Frank. “In i of these, he described the oral fissure parts of a bounding main urchin every bit ‘a horn lantern amongst the panes of horn left out’.”
It genuinely looks to a greater extent than similar “The Claw” from Toy Story. Urchins receive got conquered most bounding main habitats because their mouthparts let them to live incredibly precise when taking inwards food, much similar a hook is able to select deal of an exceptional out of a vending machine.
“The persuasion for my bioinspired blueprint projection came to me i nighttime during a local word broadcast,” said Frank. “It was an update on NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover, as well as I noticed 2 things: first, that the apparatus used to collect samples from the surface of Mars is a shovel as well as second, that the rover was having around issues surveying the planet to collect samples because the wheels were punctured past times sudden rocks. If nosotros could produce many smaller rovers that could collect samples inwards a vogue similar to the means urchins accept inwards food, it would enable a much to a greater extent than efficient as well as precise sampling method.”
Frank as well as his colleagues outsourced the prototyping of their blueprint to a squad of students inwards the MAE 156 capstone blueprint course of didactics for seniors. He as well as his colleagues as well as thus attached the bioinspired sampler to a rover for testing on the beach as well as i time to a greater extent than amongst Mars simulant provided past times professor of structural engineering Yu Qiao’s group.
Frank hopes to live able to reckon NASA adopt the design. He says that the Rady School of Business at UC San Diego has opened his eyes to startups as well as entrepreneurship, as well as he’d similar to reckon it through.
“The apparatus is real efficient because it opens every bit it extends as well as closes every bit it returns,” said Steven Naleway, too a materials scientific discipline as well as engineering PhD candidate at the Jacobs School of Engineering. “That’s i displace instead of two. NASA could genuinely increment the efficiency amongst which the Mars Rover collects samples past times incorporating the design.”
While Naleway is an writer on the poster (titled “Microstructure as well as bioinspired application of Aristotle’s Lantern: Urchins from the Sea to Mars”), he has his ain bioinspired query – box fish armor.
.jpg "Meet the Engineers of Tomorrow: Michael Frank as well as Steven Naleway") |
| Steven Naleway |
“Most fish produce upwards one's heed to articulate their scales, simply the box fish doesn’t,” said Naleway. “Why is that? Instead of articulation, which allows for consummate coverage of the trunk past times eliminating interfaces, the boxfish employs a complex interdigitating suture pattern inwards betwixt its scales (known every bit scutes). I am interested inwards the mechanical advantages these sutures provide.”
In improver to their function on Aristotle’s Lantern, Frank as well as Naleway volition both nowadays posters at Research Expo on freeze casting – a physical procedure using the directional freezing of H2O to brand porous scaffolds similar to the spongy layer of os as well as a number of other biological materials. Naleway volition nowadays a poster titled “Easing the fabrication of bioinspired composites through the purpose of clathrate hydrates inwards freeze casting” as well as Frank volition nowadays on “Magnetic freeze casting: porous scaffolds bio-inspired past times bone”.
Don’t immature adult woman these slap-up posters – there’s notwithstanding fourth dimension to register for Research Expo at www.jacobsschool.edu/re