On August 2-4, 2016, the Ohio Aerospace Institute (OAI) and Great Lakes Biomimicry (GLBio), in collaboration with NASA, presented the first annual National Biomimicry Summit and Education Forum for Aerospace. The overall Summit Objective was to establish a convergence of practitioners, disciplines, bio-inspired philosophy, tools and research for the benefit of all.
The Summit introduced VIBE, an online community where biomimetics can meet and collaborate in a virtual environment. VIBE was established by a multidisciplinary team at the NASA Glenn Research Center with the goal of creating a sustainable, cross-geographical, 24x7 online workspace. With biomimicry as its driving philosophy, VIBE seeks to advance biomimicry research in cooperation with partners from academia, industry and other government agencies.
A design project was created at the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering based on the themes explored during the summit and asked 850 students in a first year engineering design and communication course to explore design inspired by nature and how it might benefit the following areas:
1. Materials and structures for extreme environments
2. Persistence of life in extreme environments
3. Guidance, navigation and communication
4. Next generation aeronautics and in-space propulsion
5. Sustainable energy conversion and power
This paper will describe the design methodology and approaches used for this project, report on the outcomes, and discuss lessons learned.
Marjan Eggermont is the current Associate Dean (Student Affairs) and a Senior Instructor and faculty member at the University of Calgary in the Mechanical and Manufacturing department of the Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary. She teaches communications in their first Engineering Design and Communication course taught to all incoming engineering students.
She co-founded and designs ZQ, an online journal to provide a platform to showcase the nexus of science and design using case studies, news, and articles.
As an instructor, she was one of the recipients of The Allan Blizzard Award, a Canadian national teaching award for collaborative projects that improve student learning in 2004. In 2005, she was one of the recipients of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Curriculum Innovation Award. She is - as PIC II chair - currently a board member of ASEE.
Recently retired as a senior research scientist in the Photovoltaics and Electrochemical Systems Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, OH., he was awarded a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 1997. He worked at NASA Glenn Research Center for thirty years of his 33-year career in the areas of biomimicry, energy conversion and storage, precursors for spray pyrolysis of metal sulfides and carbon nanotubes, thin film and nanomaterials for photovoltaics and batteries, materials processing of local resources for exploration and colonization of the solar system, and flight experiments for Mars and small satellites. He has nearly 200 publications in refereed journals, conference proceedings, technical publications, and book chapters. His six patents have resulted in the formation of two companies to exploit gallium arsenide passivation (Gallia, Inc.) and low-temperature chemical vapor deposition of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Nanotech Innovations, LLC). He is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Materials Science and Engineering B, an Elsevier journal. He was a consulting editor (2010-2011) and Editor-in-Chief of Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing (2012-2015); he is currently Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus and Chair of the International Editorial Advisory Board.
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