This 11-minute video illustrates how biologists and engineers at UC Berkeley worked together using biomimicry to create an innovative adhesive and life-saving robots.

Objectives

  • Viewers will gain an appreciation for interdisciplinary collaboration by observing how biomimicry benefits from biologists and engineers working together.
  • Viewers will understand that biomimicry goes beyond simply copying nature and focuses on the principles of how nature functions.
  • Viewers will learn the value of conserving biodiversity as a library of ideas and solutions.

This video highlights research at UC Berkeley and the iterative and interdisciplinary processes that make successful. Beginning with the gecko as an example, this segment shows how starting with curiosity (“how do geckos climb?”) led to research through close observation, which in turn led to an interdisciplinary collaboration to create designs based on principles learned from the gecko. The video includes research and commentary by professors Robert Full and Ron Fearing as well as a graduate student in their lab.

“Biologists like us discover the general principles of function, give those ideas to the engineers, they build something that’s never been built before. In doing that, they have lots of questions and they then generate ideas to allow us to go back and discover new things about the animals.” –Robert Full, UC Berkeley

Educators should consider showing this video after explaining biomimicry to students but before students get too far into their own design projects. It will help students understand why biomimicry requires an iterative process: moving forward, moving back, repeatedly asking questions, testing results, etc. They will also understand that working in an interdisciplinary team of biologists and engineers allowed the gecko team to learn from these living organisms to create innovative products.