Vine seeds become gliders with 12% descent angle

Re:Vine seeds become gliders with 12% descent angle by noisedom on Monday December 07, 2009 @03:54AM (#980931)

Nature is a great place to steal ideas from.

Here's a fine example of seed gliding inspired design:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbuGCgc-JCM&feature=playe...

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Re:Vine seeds become gliders with 12% descent angle by wallflower on Monday December 07, 2009 @05:59AM (#981025)

Thanks for bringing back memories. As a kid, I was always fascinated (and still am) by the helicoptering action of maple seeds when my sisters and I dropped then into the air from our deck.

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/TRC/Aeronautics/Maple_Seed....

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Re:Vine seeds become gliders with 12% descent angle by deltapoint on Monday December 07, 2009 @04:56AM (#980967)

Agreed. There is a whole field called biomimicry that tries to apply systems found in nature to solve engineering problems. This TED video explores the topic pretty well: http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_desig...

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