Category: student post

Bees Can Fly?

October 5, 2011 at 7:52 pm

This question might seem one of the most absurd, but it is one that has baffled scientists for over 70 years. In 1934, a French entomologist, one who studies insects, August Magnan and his assistant calculated that a bee was physically incapable of flying. Aerodynamically that is. But bees fly everyday! So, this question has […]

By Chris Hui | Tagged , | Comments (1)

JetMAN

October 5, 2011 at 1:10 am

When you are in an airplane and looking out into the beautiful sky, what do you think? Well, I always thought about how amazing it would be to soar through the sky like Iron Man or Superman. Apparently, Yves Rossy also had the same idea. He became the first and only man in history to […]

By Shahil Patel | Tagged | Comments (4)

Early Flapping Flight Designs

October 3, 2011 at 2:06 pm

It seems like since the beginning of time, man has always been intrigued by the idea of flight, more specifically, the idea of flapping flight seen in birds. Birds seem to fly with little to no effort so it is not surprising that the earliest designs in flight would emulate birds. The first writings on […]

By Will Livingston | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

Shinkansen “bullet trains”: Biomimicry at it’s best.

October 3, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Being an engineer is difficult. Not only do you have an extremely demanding workload and challenging classes, but you also get the prejudice of being, well, a nerd. “Oh, you’re an engineer? Never mind, you probably haven’t even been camping.” or “I guessed you probably don’t like animals because, you know, you’re  an engineer.” are the […]

By Grace Ingalls | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Ballooning With the Stegodyphus Spider

October 2, 2011 at 11:09 pm

This spider is a little guy, and that is the only reason his mode of transport works. When the Stegodyphus wants to move long distances it takes to the wind. It will raise its tail in the air and release a large amount of threads in the air. After it has released enough the wind […]

By Nathan Thompson | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Ballooning With the Stegodyphus Spider