Conclusion

Throughout these thirteen weeks, the team has adopted two Chocolate Chip Starfishes to observe and study. The selection of this aquatic creature was due to its potential inspiration of a biomimicry engineering design. Starfishes are unique creatures as they have Benthic locomotion to adapt to the geography. The Benthic locomotion utilizes tube feets of the starfish, which acts like a vacuum cup created through contraction of their muscles. Thereafter, the team considered the anatomy of the starfish, unique feeding mechanism, reproduction and regeneration of a starfish. Throughout the adoption, the team only managed to witness the lomotion and unique feeding mechanism of the starfish. However, the reproduction of the starfish amazes us it reproduces both sexually and asexually. The sexually reproduction involves few stages which are spawning, egg stage, larval stage and juvenile stage. The asexual reproduction involves a starfish's arm can be detached from the central disk, and a whole new starfish can be formed. Similarly, starfish has the ability of regeneration and it occurs when the starfish loses its limb. The few reasons why a starfish would lose its limb is due to self dense or an injury.

However, from this adoption, the feature that intrigues us the most is the ability of a starfish to attach itself onto the glass on the aquarium surfaces. The tube feet used in the Benthic locomotion has allowed the team to nurture the idea of creating a "Starfish" bodysuit. This idea is catered to building cleaners for safety purposes as the suit will adapt a similar concept as the adhesive suction cups on the starfish's tube feet. The temporary adhesive material left behind by the starfish is called Seastar Footprint Protein 1 (SFP1) which sticks strongly on glass or mica surfaces. 

Nevertheless, a recommendation to improve the design of the bodysuit is to study the integration of SFP1 onto the bodysuits. The properties of the SFP1 which theoretically leads to the development of a protein-based product may have chemical properties that may react with the material of the bodysuit. Therefore, the team have to further investigate the chemical properties of SFP1 and fully comprehend its nature in order to produce the "Starfish" bodysuit.

Stephanie's Reflection

The most interesting proposed used of biomimicry was the study of the tube feet of the starfish. The ability to stick on glass surfaces has inspired the team to come up with a novel industry application. The unique features of the tube feet consists of tiny suction cups to allow movement and attachment on objects or walls. By understanding the unique motion of a starfish, the team was able to adopt the features of a starfishes' tube feet by creating a "starfish" bodysuit. The idea behind the creation of bodysuit is to solve a challenge faced by window cleaners. This bodysuit would contain SFP1 (Seastar Footprint Protein 1) which is left behind by the starfish while moving across the glass wall. This adhesion would be located at the critical surfaces while climbing (foot, knees, abdomen and between the elbow and wrist).

This design is viable to be patented due to the fact that there are existing bodysuits that utilizes the same concept. Nevertheless, the method of adhesive is different as it is adopted by a starfish. However, this design needs much improvement and to thoroughly think through the safety measures of the bodysuit to mitigate any risks.

Personally, the starfish was under my care after the semester break. The starfish required extra attention and care especially keeping the sanity of the aquarium clean. Besides that, I was in charge of the maintenance and creation of the blog. However, working as a team has definitely provided a better platform in nurturing novel ideas. The starfish had a different impact on all team members. With different perspective, the team was able to come up with a great idea. This journey together with them is a memorable and fruitful one! Thank you team!

Jason's Reflection

Engineering Biomimetics has definitely been an interesting module of learning whereby exposure is given in addressing the possibilities of acquiring inspirations from nature to develop sustainable and possibly commercial engineering design solutions that could meet the current challenges encountered in our daily lives. Engineering Biomimetics has given both classroom and out-of-classroom learning experiences of which includes a blog creation on the adoption of a plant or animal that could lead to fruitful inspiration of biomimicry in suggesting a novel industrial application.

Our adopted animal is the Chocolate Chip Starfish whereby the most interesting proposed biomimicry of the starfish would be the adhesive mechanism of the tube feet of the starfish to surfaces it comes in contact with whereby the starfish has the ability to adhere to the surfaces for a long period of time without faltering. The proposed novel industrial application based on this inspired biomimicry of the tube feet of the starfish is the creation of a bodysuit that targets for window-cleaning of high-rise buildings. The tube feet consist of a suction cup that provides the adhesive characteristic through the Seastar Footprint Protein 1 (SFP 1) which is responsible for adhesion to the surface and a meshwork deposited on this film for cohesion. The SFP 1 material is able to adhere strongly to glass or mica material, thus, the bodysuit would be coated with this material at strategic locations (i.e. the foot, knees, abdomen and between elbow and wrist). This novel bodysuit design is able to cater for high-rise buildings window cleaners whereby implementation of this bodysuit has a promising potential in reducing the risk and hassle of utilising harness and platforms and improves flexibility, safety, ease of use and parameters of reach.

In executing this animal adoption and blog creation, challenges encountered is inevitable, nevertheless, working in a team is able to resolve them and the segregated workloads among team members ensure all the tasks that needs to be done is on track. I was in-charged with care-taking of the starfish together with Eason (i.e. feeding, ensure a clean environment) before the mid-sem-break and was taken over by Stephanie after the mid-sem-break. On the blog creation, I was in-charged for the blog posts on anatomy, feeding mechanism, regeneration characteristics and reproduction of the starfish. This experience has been a fun, fruitful and eye-opening one for me and may ‘Starfish continues to light the way to Biomimicry!’.

Eason's Reflection

In this research project, we have studied and understand most of the anatomy and features of a chocolate chip starfish. Although there are many kinds of starfish in the ocean, almost all of them have the same unique ability which is their regeneration capability and their unique locomotion system. The most interesting topic discussed in this blog will be the novel industrial application section where a sticky concept suit is proposed which can be used by workers that work at high altitude or high rise building that could ensure their safety during. This is because of our main Moto agreed by the team were to be safety. Although there are much more improvement that is needed to be made, the idea has still proven to be quite an impressive and logical. The starfish was under the care of Jason and myself before the semester break. We contributed in keeping the environment of the aquarium suitable for the starfish. Besides that, Charles and myself in the beginning of the semester purchased the starfishes together and it was an amazing experience.

Needless to say, working in a team has allowed effective idea generation. Each of us also allowed wild ideas to be proposed so that we could build our idea on each other’s wild idea to form an incredible idea. But all in all, this project has brought our team a wonderful chance to study the life of an extraordinary marine life which is not an ordinary marine pet which can be found in normal household. The reason is simply because it requires only a specific environment for it to be able to sustain its life. By taking up this challenge to adopt such a challenging animal as our biomimicry research study subject, it allowed us to learn new things and work outside of our comfort zone.

Nicole's Reflection

I am very lucky to take part in the Biomimetic ‘project’ which is to adopt a life and study the life in order to create a product or a process through mimic the adopted life. Research and reading help me to have an overall understanding on the adopted life (starfish) to expand my knowledge as well as inspire me to create something new. As we have six people in our group, we came up with the idea starfish bodysuit which is the most interesting proposed used of biomimicry and it seems to have similarity with the Spiderman suit that we watched from TV. It feels amazing if we are wearing the Starfish bodysuit and stick outside the building and it may become a reality. I think this design is patentable as currently it still considers a novel product and is unique enough to be approved even all of us already saw it in TV but that is not happen in reality yet. Through our research and study, we are able to determine the compounds on starfish which gives the adhesive properties and contribute to the starfish bodysuit which make our effort more scientifically proven for it to be functional. Carmen and myself have contributed by suggesting the novel industrial application of a starfish. I thoroughly studied the application of the SFP1 to fully comprehend the feasibility of the bodysuit. Working as a team made this project easier as more hands make for lighter work and six heads are better than one. One of the reasons is because we got more people in the brain storming section which able to come up with a lot of silly ideas, without the teammates we won’t came up this idea which may be feasible in our real life. Besides, work in a team we become more productive, creative and motivated than individuals on their own which will only give us more benefits than we work it by individual.

Carmen's Reflection

The most interesting proposed used of biomimicry developed by starfish is the regeneration ability because it has high healing capacity where it can reduce the number of replacements of repair materials as well as reduce the life cycle cost. Besides regeneration, the locomotion which utilized tube-like legs that create vacuum by contracting their muscles is also fascinating. The tube-like legs have the ability of clinging to the wall or corals easily. The seastar footprint protein 1 (SFP1) found has an outstanding benefit as it illustrates the adhesion strength that make them attached to the glass. Body suit is inspired by the starfish mainly from its locomotion targeting for high rise building cleaner highlighting the safety purposes. The design is patentable as no one has done it before and it is also a unique design to improve the safety system of high rise building cleaner instead of only attaching a safety string on the body. This adhesive suction cups can be positioned at the foot, knees, abdomen as well as the joints. To be extra save, these products can be put on together with the existing safety string on the body of the cleaner. Nicole and myself has played a major role in contributing to the novel industry application. Both of us carefully studied the features of the starfish to come up with a bio-inspiration. Working as a team definitely made this project easier as all the 6 members can contribute different kinds of ideas improving the productivity of this project to the maximum. Whoever face any challenges, the team can discuss and come out with the best solution based on by analyzing the important factors as a team.

Charles' Reflection

From this biomimetic project, I had learnt a lot about starfish such as their characteristics, locomotion, and bio-inspiration ideas. I would like to thank my team members (Chiang Lin Chern, Stephanie Lai, Poh Jing Wen, Carmen Lee and Jason Gan) for taking good care of our starfish. It was difficult to own because it is needed a good environment system which is salty water, shrimp as food and required oxygen supply. If one of these conditions is missing, it will die in a short period. Hence, I appreciated the contribution of every member to this project. As leader of this team, I had a major role in coordinating and communicating to the team from different engineering disciplines. Besides that, Eason and I purchased the starfishes and set up the environment for the starfish to live in. Furthermore, I also want to express my greatest gratitude to my lecturer, Dr. Yong Leng Chuan for proposing us this project in our final year. It was been such a long time that I have a great time in the project and it brought a lot of fun to me. It is because this is the first time I own a starfish and it is interesting to observe how it sticks and moves on the container wall and its feeding process. Last but not least, I want to thank Taylor’s University for offering this Engineering and Biomimetic subject to me. This subject is very interesting as in raising pet project and industrial visit. I learnt a lot from the industrial visit and treasured this rare opportunity for learning other biomimetic products. I am sure the knowledge I obtain from this subject would be useful in my future career and it will become my advantage compare to others.