Tagged: Rockets

Biomimicry in Model Rocketry

November 30, 2011 at 12:28 am

Model rocketry has a frequently hostile relationship with nature. Hard desert floors shatter swiftly falling rockets, ponds drown them, high grass hides them, and high winds carry them away. So many rockets drift into the forests that inevitably surround launch fields that my local club joking acronyms itself “Carefully Arranged Tree Ornaments”. But model rocketry […]

By David Sindel | Posted in student post | Also tagged , , | Comments (2)

Gecko-Inspired Rocket Recovery

November 13, 2011 at 5:51 pm

Geckos exhibit an unusual phenomenon that inspires exciting possibilities in human engineering. While frogs, lizards, and most other organisms that have self-orienting responses while falling use aerodynamics, geckos use principle of conservation of  angular momentum. Professor Robert Full’s lab at UC Berkeley has studied this behavior extensively. In the video from their study, notice how […]

By David Harris | Posted in student post | Also tagged , , , | Comments (2)