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.