3.A24 Freshman Seminar: The Engineering of Birds, Fall 2004

Gibson, Lorna J.

Author(s)

Gibson, Lorna J.

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Alternative title

Freshman Seminar: The Engineering of Birds

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Abstract

Why are things in nature shaped the way they are? How do birds fly? Why do bird nests look the way they do? How do woodpeckers peck? These are the types of questions Dr. Lorna Gibson's freshman seminar at MIT has been investigating. We invite you to explore with us. Questions such as these are the subject of biomimetic research. When engineers copy the shapes found in nature we call it Biomimetics. The word biomimic comes from bio, as in biology and mimetic, which means to copy. Join us as we explore and look for answers to why similar shapes occur in so many natural things and how physics change the shape of nature.

Date issued

2004-12

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36851

Department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Other identifiers

3.A24-Fall2004

local: 3.A24

local: IMSCP-MD5-7f01095ebe108b982197a647ec1e5306

Keywords

freshman seminar, service learning, biomimetic research, Biomimetics, biology, mimetic, physics, nature, natural engineering, wood, trees

Collections

MIT OCW Archived Courses