Symposium: Bioinspiration: Applying mechanical design to experimental biology

Our goal is to bring together scientists who work in similar fields of bioinspired robotics but have likely never interacted with each other, to address some of the grand challenge issues: understanding the organism's role in organism-environment linkages, utilizing the functional diversity of organisms, integrating living and physical systems analysis, and understanding how organisms walk the tightrope between stability and change. More recently, biologically-inspired robotic models are being used to address these research facets in all kingdoms of biological science. This symposium will provide a forum for leaders from different areas in experimental applications of biologically-inspired robotic designs to present their techniques and research which is defining the development of this field. Bioinspired constructions rely heavily on a thorough understanding of the physiological and mechanical attributes of the organism in question and often offer a "proof of concept" validation of that understanding if the device is able to replicate organismic locomotion. Also, bioinspired robotics offer researchers the ability to examine a more thorough parameter space of organismal function by permitting study of a wider array of locomotor repertoires than an organism may perform regularly or repeatedly. In the last few years, there have been numerous successful applications of bioinspired robotics that have been both a product and experimental aspect of research in invertebrate and vertebrate morphology and comparative biomechanics. The speakers we have invited study cells, gastropods, fish, insects, marine mammals, and terrestrial organisms from engineering, medical, evolutionary, and biological perspectives.

Sponsors

This symposium is sponsored by the following divisions: DCB, DVM, DIZ

Organizers

• Brooke Flammang (Harvard University)
• Marianne Porter (Vassar College)

Speakers