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IIT Madras to offer a course on biomimicry
Posted on: 11/Aug/2020 3:11:47 PM
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) has proposed to offer a course on Biomimicry.
Statement about the course - ‘The new course aims to look at nature to find solutions for complex problems’.
The course will be taught by four professors:
- M.S. Sivakumar, Dean of Students
- Shiva Subramaniam, Chief Innovation Officer of Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Satyanarayanan Seshadri of the Department of Applied Mechanics
- Srinivasa Chakravarthy of the Department of Biotechnology.
Interested persons may contact Mr Subramaniam at 9176612393 or email at shiva@thinkpaperclip.com.
The course:
According to the professors, Biomimicry is the intersection of biology and engineering. The course aims to look to nature to solve complex problems. Curiosity is enough to start a chain reaction from observation to learn why an event occurs.
Example:
Giving an example of the lotus leaf repelling water was due to the bumps in its structure.
The water falls off the leaf and so do dirt particles, they point out. Not only does this lead to learning about the leaf’s structure but also inspires the idea of using the principle to build a similar structure in clothes.
Views:
The researchers believe there are multiple applications to be learned from each organism, which has evolved strategies and adapted to survive on the planet.
These blueprints from nature could be used to design and build solutions.
Some inspirations based on bio-observations:
- The Shinkansen bullet train in Tokyo was inspired by the kingfisher
- The Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, was inspired by the termite mound
- The town of Kalundborg in Denmark practises industrial symbiosis and the wind turbine blade design was inspired by the flippers of humpback whales and the self-filling water, flasks were inspired by the Namib desert beetle.
