Arctic Animal Robot
Experimental setup: a robot walks across a cottonball terrain.Copyright 2012 Andrew Cave, Polytechnic Institute of NYU
Students create four-legged walking robots and measure how far they travel across different types of surfaces. They design and create "shoes" to add to the robots' feet and observe the effect of their modifications on the net distance traveled across the various surface types. This activity illustrates how the specialized locomotive features of different species help them to survive or thrive in their habitat environments. The activity is best as an enrichment tool that follows a lesson that introduces the concept of biological adaptation to students.
Robot engineers often employ biomimicry to generate creative ideas, and look to the animal kingdom to imitate the way different animals move, swim, fly and move through their environments.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Define a problem, then design and test a solution that addresses the problem.
- Describe variations in animal species across different environments.
- Investigate the special abilities and structures of animals in their niche environment.