Biomimicry – Grasshoppers Inspired Engineering Innovation

Abstract

Biomimicry is an engineering discipline to mimic traits of living organisms into engineering design. Learning from nature has many advantages. For a start, the process of evolution is an interesting process to understand. Evolution helps organisms adapt to its environment by various mechanisms including natural selection, genetic drift etc. This helps organisms to have all sorts of interesting traits to survive various environments on different parts of earth. Since evolution has taken place for a very long time on earth, learning from nature becomes interesting as the traits of organisms on planet earth have become so complex and refined. These traits can be easily copied to give birth to all sorts of engineering ideas. Grasshoppers are commonly found in parks or gardens. The wide area allows them to jump freely in any direction they want to search for food, shelter and also to mate and lay their eggs. Grasshoppers have inspired many new engineering designs to help solve problems faced by humans. For example, the legs of a grasshopper have inspired robotic arms which are widely used in manufacturing vehicles. The actuator arms of robots mimics the legs of grasshopper which is capable of storing energy when it contracts. This mini review will introduce the anatomy of grasshopper and biomimicry of the grasshopper into various engineering designs. Keywords