Authors

Professor Lorena A Barba, course instructor — Prof Barba teaches fluid mechanics (undergraduate) and computational fluid dynamics (graduate). Her courses can be found on iTunes U. She also does research in the area of computational fluid dynamics, numerical algorithms, and high-performance computing. Her posts in this blog are:

EK 132 students (Fall 2011)

Al Jawder, Saud — “Thought flying fish were just in mario games? Think again…” — “The Saker Falcon”

Burke, Bradley — “Flight Dynamics of Dragonflies” — “Flying Squid”

Chalifoux, Andrew — “Triassic Delta Wing Gliders” — “A Hive of Robotic Bees”

Charny, Samuel — “The Goshawk: The Peak of Aviation” — “Lines Blurred: Archaeopteryx Knocked From Perch of ‘First Bird’”

Chiga, Bradley — “Pigeon Power, Dynamic Wings Improve Capabilities” — “Turbulence”

Corrigan, Aidan — “Variable-Geometry Wings” — “Why Can the Peregrine Falcon Fly So Fast?”

Coughlin, Solange — “Sky slitherers” — “The kestrel’s wind-hover”

Cullen, Chloe — “Festo’s Flapping Flight” — “Leading Edge Vortices In Bats”

Gibson, Celia — “Ornithopters: Then and Now” — “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a…Mobula Ray?”

Han, Samuel — “Festo Unveils Flying Robot Bird” — “Misconceptions of the Bumblebee: an in-depth Analysis of an Aerodynamic Marvel”

Harris, David — “Gecko-Inspired Rocket Recovery” — “The Limit of Aerial Evolution”

Kelley, Craig — “Pros and Cons of the Avian Skeletal System” — “Archaeopteryx: The World’s First Bird (Probably)”

Koyama, Sean — “Application of Hummingbird Physics” — “Rockets in Horse Poop”

Miezgiel, Krzysztof — “Micro Flying Robots Bring Spying To A New Level” — “Silence is Golden, Thanks to the Owl”

Nam, Brian — “Penguins Can Fly… Underwater!” — “The Unique Abilities of Hummingbirds”

Sindel, David — “Spinning and gliding seeds” — “Biomimicry in Model Rocketry”

Sirota, Ted — “Da Vinci’s Flying Machines” — “Technology in the Classroom”

Szabo, Alexander — “Ballooning Spiders” — “The Wandering Albatross”

Tran, Jenny — “Squids Can Fly!”

Varela, Adrienne — “Microscopic Hair on Bats Allow for Better Flight” — “Honeybees: Control of Flight Speedv”

Your, Thomas — “The Development of Gecko Tape” — “The Science of Smoke Rings”

EK 131 students (Fall 2011)

Hersh Bendre — “Sharkskin Paint” — “Sugar Gliders” — “The Physics of Paper Planes”

Gabriel Beru — “Wallace’s Flying Frog” — “That Thing Can Really Fly?” — “The REAL Reason why Ostriches Can’t Fly” — “A High Flying Bird”

David DeCaprio — “Flying Squid” — “Spying with Nature” — “Solving the Mystery of the V”

Stephen Deschamps — “Batman and Biomimetics” — “Stanford’s Perching Drones Land Vertically” — “Aerodynamic Biocar Based on Boxfish”

Ryan Erf — “Bernoulli’s Principle Explained” — “The Astonishing Agility of the Dragonfly” — “Vortices and the Amazing Flying V”

Matthew Farmer — “Robots in Disguise” — “Top Gun” — “Evolution of Mammalian Flight” —“Golden eagle droppings”

Alexander Freedman — “Flight of the Malayan Colugo” — “A Bird’s Breath” — “Winglets: The anti-vortex device”

Christopher Hui — “Bees Can Fly?” — “Driving ‘Above’ The Influence” — “Fly Like a… Bar-Headed Goose?”

Grace Ingalls — “Shinkansen ‘bullet trains’: Biomimicry at it’s best” — “It’s a bird. No it’s an insect. No, wait, its a hummingbird!” — “Hummingbird’s Wake”

William Livingston — “Early Flapping Flight Designs” — “The Unmanned Ornithopter” — “The Wright Flyer’s warping wings”

Luke Loreti — “Robotic Flies at Harvard” — “Nature’s Original Fliers” — “Flying in Circles”

Hsian-Wei (Kevin) Ma — “Chrysopelea: the ‘Flying’ Snake” — “AeroVironment, Inc.’s Nano Hummingbird” — “Morphing Wings”

Colby Mann — “Gliding Vine Seeds” — “Are hummingbirds just insects with feathers?” — “The Pterosaur”

Samuel Nichols — “The Flying Lizard” — “Small Seeds Inspire Big Ideas” — “Nature’s Mysterious Flyer”

Morgan Parker — “The Flying Fish!” — “The Common Murre!” — “A Kettle of Bald Eagles”

Shahil Patel — “The Sugar Glider” — “Jetman” — “Roboswift”

Nathan Provencher — “The Flying Mobula Ray” — “Penguins Can’t Fly?” — “Robotic Bat Biomimcry”

Charles Schumacher — “A Robot that Flies like a Bird” — “The Seabreacher” — “Festo’s SmartBird”

Nathan Thompson — “Ballooning With the Stegodyphus Spider” — “Internal Adaptation for the Tree Lizard” — “Ancestors of Birds Had Four Wings”

Christopher Tourville — “The Ancient Argentavis” — “The world’s smallest flying creature!” — “The Bumblebee Bat!”

Jean-Marc Tsang — “The Flying Squirrel” — The fastest animal on Earth “The Peregrine Falcon” — “Bats – the only flying mammals”

David Villari — “The Physics of Wingsuits” — “The Walkalong Glider” — “The Elegant Swan’s Adaptations”