Integrating Biology, Design, and Engineering for Sustainable Innovation

5th IEEE Integrated STEM Conference (2015)

Integrating Biology, Design, and Engineering for Sustainable Innovation Brook Kennedy and Author Buikema Virginia Tech, [email protected], [email protected]

Jacquelyn K.S. Nagel James Madison University, [email protected]

Abstract – Bio-inspired design, Biomimicry or Biomimetics is a broad methodology that encourages learning from nature to generate innovative, impactful, and responsible solutions to humankind’s problems. As an integrative approach it can be used to teach students across the STEaM disciplines problem solving, design, innovation, and sustainability concepts, as well as strengthen their ability to develop solutions to crossdisciplinary problems. In the Spring 2014 semester we co-taught a course entitled Integrating Biology and Design for Sustainable Innovation at Virginia Tech. The course promoted true interdisciplinary collaboration by integrating teams with backgrounds in life sciences, engineering and design to solve a challenge through a semester long design project. In this paper we discuss our experience teaching the interdisciplinary course, as well as the framework for the course and best practices such that others can implement a similar course at their University. Above all, courses like these are significant in that they take a step towards accelerating sustainable design innovation, an area that has received considerable focus and effort yet whose progress for tangible outcomes has been insufficient.

disciplines to produce deeper insights,” [1]. One approach to foster that mindset is through biomimicry or bio-inspired design. Bio-inspired design is a methodology that encourages learning from nature to generate innovative, impactful, and responsible solutions to human-kind’s problems that are more economic, efficient and sustainable than ones conceived entirely from first principles [2, 3]. Bioinspired design offers a universal approach to teaching sustainable innovation and innovative design that can apply to the majority of STEaM disciplines as well as strengthen technical and non-technical competencies necessary for solving cross-disciplinary problems. Furthermore, bioinspired design offers relevance to professional practice as well as an effective hook to frame complex, crossdisciplinary problems [4, 5]. In this paper we discuss our experience teaching an interdisciplinary course that integrates biology, design, and engineering for teaching sustainable innovation. The course framework is presented followed by best practices for coordinating and teaching a college level course on bioinspired design.

Index Terms – Bio-inspiration, Bio-inspired Design, Biomimicry, Biomimetics, Interdisciplinary collaboration, Sustainable Design, Innovation.

Instruction in bio-inspired design is becoming more common in engineering programs in the United States and abroad, and has been integrated at the module, project, or course levels. Bio-inspired design concepts and examples have been used by several institutions to educate students on design innovation, using nature as another source of design inspiration, or integrating concepts of sustainability into design. Institutions include Oregon State University, University of Georgia, James Madison University, Purdue University, Clemson University, Penn State University-Erie, University of Maryland, University of Calgary, Indian Institute of Science, University of Toronto and Ecole Centrale Paris to name a few. Often the instruction is across less than four lectures, which reduces the burden of integration into existing courses, and is in a design-focused course. These institutions also require students to complete assignments or a project involving bio-inspired design to practice the technique and demonstrate its value. Institutions including Georgia Tech, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Olin College of Engineering, Kettering University, University of Maryland, and Montana

BACKGROUND

INTRODUCTION Innovative design is essential to creating new and better products and industries, and is also important for the US to maintain and sustain its global economic leadership. Design innovation has been identified as an important learning approach for students in science, technology, and engineering disciplines by national organizations, like the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Engineering, among others. Real-world problems are rarely defined along specific disciplinary lines and innovation occurs when those lines are crossed. Thus, cross-disciplinary problem solving will be key in developing a STEM workforce that has an innovation mindset. As Adams states, “Cross-disciplinary problem solving will prepare students to become professionals who can deal with complexity, innovate, flexibly adapt to new situations, and bridge

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State University offer semester long engineering courses in bio-inspired design, or interdisciplinary courses that bring together students from STEaM disciplines. Engineering faculty, generally teaches the engineering courses with a background in engineering design, while the interdisciplinary courses are co-taught by at least two faculty from different disciplines. Probably the most well known institution that offers an interdisciplinary course in bioinspired design is Georgia Tech, which offers multiple courses and a certificate through the Center for Bio-inspired Design [6, 7]. The undergraduate interdisciplinary course is co-taught by faculty from biology and engineering. At the Innovation Space within the Herberger Institute at Arizona State University, biomimicry is taught as part of the broader context of interdisciplinary design innovation and entrepreneurship offerings. In all cases, students work in teams on assignments and projects [8].

Design for Sustainable Innovation that provides training in the methods and techniques of bio-inspired design that facilitate the use of biological functions and forms in solutions for human challenges. The output of the course is a conceptual design and prototype that incorporates biological inspiration to solve a problem relevant to one of the three project areas, as well as an account of how the problem was analyzed. The course consisted of 11 honors students representing wide academic backgrounds spanning the Colleges of Architecture and Urban Studies, the College of Science and the College of Engineering. Specifically the student roster was composed of third year, fourth year and master’s students in Industrial Design (2), Architecture (1), Interior Design (1), Landscape Architecture (1), Biology (2) Sustainable Biomaterials (1), Materials Science (1), Mechanical Engineering (1) and Industrial Systems Engineering (1). Five students were male, 6 were female. Teaching responsibilities were likewise represented by Industrial Design (Associate Professor Brook Kennedy), Biological Sciences (Professor Arthur Buikema) and Enginerring (Assistant Professor, Jacquelyn Nagel). Professors Kennedy and Buikema participated in each class while Professor Nagel participated remotely and in person to support class content from an engineering and functional analysis perspective. Professor Nagel also lectured and served as a juror both mid term and for the final presentations.

PEDAGOGY The pedagogical model of the course followed a collaborative, “team teaching” approach. Collaborative teaching involves course planning, and shared responsibility of instruction of all students, meaning all instructors play an active role in the course both in and out of the classroom. With the teaching team including instructors of different backgrounds, leadership rotated among the instructors based on the topic of the week. By modeling the course project interdisciplinary team structure with an instrdisciplinary teaching team, the aim is to promote interdisciplinary learning, foster teamwork among the student teams, and imrpove student engagement [9]. The benefits for students taking courses that are taught by an interdisciplinary teaching team include improved student teacher relationships, more engaging course format, greater diversity of perspectives, learning to incorporate information from another discipline into their own discipline of study, critical thinking skills, and improved communication skills.

I. Course Structure The course consisted of two halves, the first which presented relevant materials about Bio-Inspiration in lecture format, both delivered by the faculty and visiting speakers. The second half of the course switched to a project format wherein students tackled a design challenge centered around solving a “wicked problem” (i.e., Water Stewardship), using biology as a source of inspiration for their solution. Emphasis was placed on working together and developing team synergy and shared responsibility for class deliverables. An overview of the course schedule can be found in the next section. During the last class of the semester, a guest jury was invited to evaluate the merits of the students’ project results.

INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSE Bio-inspired design offers an exciting and relevant approach to multidisciplinary education. Furthermore, it provides a platform for teaching problem solving, design, prototyping, and sustainability concepts in an integrated way. The integration of divergent knowledge allows students to address pressing global challenges, particularly in the areas of sustainability. Biologists and other scientists implicitly understand general principles about the world we live in. Designers understand how to identify and define a problem, generate several ideas, prototype solutions and iterate their designs. Engineers understand inherent functions and how to use scientific and mathematic principles to solve a problem. Each approaches problem solving from a unique perspective and when combined form a powerful team. We have devised an interdisciplinary course titled Integrating Biology and

II. Course Schedule The class was offered as a Virginia Tech Honors Colloquium and conformed to a 12 week, 3 credit hour format. Students had to be honors students and were required to submit a statement summarizing why they wanted to take the class and what they felt they could contribute. Once a diverse student roster was selected the class adhered to the following schedule:

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Week 1: • • •

Lecture: Intro to Biology and Design Activity: Biology to Design warm up activity Assignment: Paragraph on Bio-Inspiration

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Lecture: Challenges introduction / Tree adaptation. Assignment: Research topics. Vote. Journaling assignment introduced.

Week 2:

Week 3: • • •

Lecture: Visitor on Bio-inspiration in Architecture / Design process “Biologizing the problem” Activity: Team formation Assignment: Define project challenge

FIGURE 1 MACRO LENS WITH EXAMPLE IMAGES

COURSE PROJECT

Week 4:

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Lecture: Sustainable Biomaterials Activity: Group share out topic

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Activity: Open project workday. Journaling Field Trip.

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Activity: Open project work day

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Lecture: Translation from Biology to functional components Activity: Mid term share out

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Lecture: Bio-Utilization and Green Roofs Activity: Open project workday. Share out of Journaling activity.

•

I. Project Options

Week 5:

Students were given three general areas in which to pursue projects with a great deal of flexibility and freedom. Emphasis was placed on not just “solving a big global problem” but also identifying what those problems exactly are. The three areas were:

Week 6: Week 7:

Project Option 1: Water Stewardship Design a product, structure or system that is inspired by a natural organism or natural system to help better manage our global water table. The idea can be globally applicable or specific to region or climate. Addressing local problems is encouraged. By “stewardship” the design must either: • Capture water from the environment • Filter water to be usable (drinkable) • Promote efficient and adaptive water use • Mitigate storm surges Water accessibility projects such as Option 1 have been addressed in other preceding challenges and are the focus of several organizations such as the alliance for water stewardship [10] and competitions such as the NAE’s Grand Challenges [11]

Week 8:

Week 9: •

Activity: Open project workday

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Lecture: Geometry, Nature and Design Activity: Open project workday

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Activity: Open project workday

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Activity: Final Presentation Journal/ project due

Week 10: Week 11: Week 12:

III. Macro Photo Journaling To help engender a class culture of shared effort and responsibility, students were also asked to develop a photo journal of local biological phenomenon which they were encouraged to explore and scrutinize using smart phone camera macro lenses to help gain a deeper understanding and connection. Students had to submit a pair of pictures per week similar to those in Figure 1, one zoomed in view and the other zoomed out, and comment on what they saw in the natural artifact and what application in might have to design. This exercise helped cultivate a perceptive eye for mundane phenomenon in the students own “back yards” and helped those students not directly involved in design to learn to think creatively about how to make a connection between what they saw and what application it could have.

Project Option 2: B38 Transportation Challenge Register to compete in the Biomimicry 3.8 (B38) Institute’s Transportation Challenge [12]. Address one or both of the following challenges in your project: • Reduce environmental impact of any form of transportation • Make public transportation, freight or individual transportation options (no cars) more responsive to user needs Project Option 3: Define your own problem Define your own problem and develop a concept to solve for it. This option is harder because it asks you to do the additional ‘leg work’ to define your own problem to solve. Some possible areas to consider might be closed loop industrial production, considering models like Ecovative [13] for eliminating waste. It is important that you are confident that there is something Biological that can be acted upon in the direction you are going.

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generation of ideas. During this time the instructors worked one on one with teams to help them find appropriate resources and think through the biological information in order to make connections between biology and their project such that analogies can be developed. By the end of the semester each team produced a complete concept.

II. Project Structure We employed a formal design process for the class project. Similar to the processes used at Georgia Tech, ours followed a strucutre based on Human Centered Design or “Design Thinking” [14,15] precedents wherein research, problem framing, and redefinition served as the initial foundation that would drive concept exploration (Figure 2). Once clairity of direction had been established, a process of iterative development with physical mock-up prototypes was encouraged and ensued.

BEST PRACTICES I. Project Engagement One of the main challenges in doing interdisciplinary project work is to ensure equal engagement by all team members throughout the course of the project. Biologists, engineers, and designers will naturally have comfort zones corresponding to different areas of their course project as shown in Figure 4. For instance, in the beginning of the project, studying or identifying biological models that have interesting design application potential will undoubtedly be more familiar and easy to digest to biologists. Once a natural phenomenon has been identified and deconstructed, a designer will feel comfortable generating ideas about potential connections or applications to a user or community, and an engineer will likely be most comfortable figuring out how to translate a bio-inspired design into a feasible, manufacturable result. While these are all disciplinary stereotypes, what is important is to maintain engagement of all team members throughout the project instead of partitioning tasks to each member when their expertise is called for. In other words, team members, regardless of discipline should be mandated to be involved in each step of the bio-inspired design process, as shown in Figure 5. Equal engagement of all members results in greater diversity of ideas and a higher possibility for innovation.

FIGURE 2 DESIGN THINKING PROCESS

To enhance this process with biological inspiration, the process was modified, as shown in Figure 3, to include two critical steps: 1. 2.

Re-framing the project by “Biologizing the Problem” – this is a technique used by the Biomimicry Institute [16]. Identifying Biological Functional analogies – using resources made available by biology faculty (books, additional faculty etc.) as well as the Biomimicry Institute’s Asknature.org [17].

FIGURE 3 MODIFIED DESIGN THINKING PROCESS TO INCLUDE BIOLOGICAL INSPIRATION

Project teams were assigned so that each team could have equal represetnation of life sciences, engineering, and design. Once teams were assigned they were each tasked with following the outlined design process in Figure 3, and began with defining the problem they would address with inspiration from nature related to the chosen project option. Each team’s problem statement was vetted by the instructors and refined until an appropriate scope was set. The teams then iterated their search for biological inspiration and

FIGURE 2 PROJECTED DISCIPLINARY INVOLVEMENT IN TEAM PROJECT

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challenge. The main idea is that they were trying to find ways of detering ice build-up on asphalt and concrete without using chemical means that end up in the water shed. From this, two solution directions emerged: one using a potentially safer spray treatment based on the internal freeze-inhibiting chemistries of artic fish and a second direction that explored how hydrophobic surfaces might lower the freeze temperatures of water. In both cases, the student team felt paralyzed about how to move forward into prototyping, since both solution areas led into prototyping territory they could not internally develop as a tean (organic chemistry and microtexturing). An alternative solution that was not biologically inspired became more interesting to the team because they could figure out how to prototype it. This solution area examined placing off-the-shelf technologies like Piezoelectric or phase change materials under the asphalt to heat the surface and deter ice. An important learning in this case of “Problem Based” design is to not force the use of bio-inspiration if it is stifling a project’s progress. Students in the case of “Safer Steps” became disillusioned with their project because they believed the focus became more using biology in their project rather than solving the problem. For this reason bioinspiration seems better used as a design “tool” in a “Problem Based” process rather than an all-encompassing process of its own. In this path, bio-inspired solutions will compete equally with other non-biologically inspired alternatives. By contrast the “Solution Based” process always yields a bio-inspired outcome because it begins with the premise of exploring the potential of that particular chosen biological phenomenon. Often, in these cases, the exceptional and remarkable nature of these phenomenon are the basis for their exploration. In the class we began the first day with an exercise of choosing an execptional species and quickly brainstorming what potential design application their unusual abilities could translate to. This activity generally produced greater excitement and appeared more accessible for generating ideas. In the Spring 2015 semester we will expand the “Solution Based” design activity to a full project followed by a “Problem Based” project. This we believe will help students become more comfortable and embrace the more ambiguous challenges of the “Problem Based” model.

FIGURE 5 IDEAL DISCIPLINARY INVOLVEMENT IN TEAM PROJECT

To foster a sense of mutual engagement and responsibility throughout the project we used the journaling activity, periodic team report out presentations, as well as mentored each of the teams through one on one consultation throughout the semester. Other activities can be employed as well to foster a team culture of mutual engagement. One technique that was used to great effect was a “Back yard” journaling exercise. With team members from different backgrounds the activity of shared inquiry allowed team members to overcome the barriers of communication and understanding each other’s perspective. Having the teams periodically report out on their progress encouraged everyone to participate and share their contribution to the project throughout the process. Feedback was provided to help them reach their project goals. Also throughout the semester, teams spoke with the instructors one on one to ask for assistance with specific aspects of their project or to get feedback on their findings. We believe the engagement of the teaching team also helped to foster the student’s involvement. II. Project Success Two separate approaches to bio-inspired design have been documented, “Problem Based” and “Solution Based” Bio-Inspired Design (the B38 Institute describes this as Challenge to Biology and Biology to Design respectively), each of which provide different outcomes. In either case, opportunities arise to create bio-inspired design ideas, but the “Problem Based” bio-inspired design process creates challenges along the way. When students begin to look at a problem they have defined and wish to solve, they invariablly come up with solution paths that are both inspired and not inspired by biology. In some cases, the students felt they were channeling their solution towards a biological analogy even if they felt their solution was inferior. One team in particular fixated on a biology-based solution and tried to make it work. “Safer Steps” as the team was known was trying to tackle ways of reducing ice build up on transportation surfaces for 2014 B38 Transportation

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK The course (IDS 3224), offered as a pilot in Spring 2013 and then in the Spring 2014 semester, was successful overall. All three teams from Spring 2014 produced a conceptual design and one team entered into the B38 Institute’s Transportation Challenge. Unique to this course on bio-inspired design was the macro photo journaling activity, which served to build team synergy through a shared experience. Overall, the students greatly valued the course experience, and reaped many of the benefits of being taught by an interdisciplinary teaching team. Students struggled with scoping their project challenge problem statement and translating the inspiring biological

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information to the problem. In the evaluation form, three main areas of feedback emerged: finding better ways to mine the biological world for inspiration (Asknature.org was useful but insufficient), providing more structure in the design process, and having the class meet twice a week instead of once. In a future run of the course students will engage in two smaller design projects to help address both issues. The added biology to design project in the first half of the course will provide practice with translation of inspiration and ease the burden on teams. Additionally more modeling exercises will be included to not only assist with understanding the biological system but also the translation of inspiration. Finally the journaling exercise will be expanded and formalized with a grade and final deliverable to cultivate a behavior of curiosity and observation which is a critical component to questioning reality, identifying problems and ultimately solving them.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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This class would not have been possible without the diligent and industrious commitment of our students, Brian Pughe, Daniel Zhang, Sara Fleetwood, Rob Kuczmarksi, Smita Sharma, Krissy Colvin, Jared Layne, Lina Garada, Jeffrey McGuire, Lindsey Slough and Amy Eliason. It would also not have been possible without the generous support of the 4VA Grant Initiative and Institute of Creativity, Arts and Technology at Virginia Tech.

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[7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

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AUTHOR INFORMATION Arthur Buikema, Professor, Department of Biological Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Brook S. Kennedy, Associate Professor, Industrial Design, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Jacquelyn K.S. Nagel, Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering, James Madison University.

REFERENCES [1] [2] [3]

Benyus, J.M., Biomimicry Innovation Inspired by Nature1997, New York: Morrow. Nagel, J.K.S., R.B. Stone, and D.A. McAdams, Function-Based Biologically-Inspired Design, in Biologically Inspired Design: Computational Methods and Tools, A. Goel, R.B. Stone, and D.A. McAdams, Editors. 2013, Springer. Lynch-Caris, T.M., J. Waever, and D.K. Kleinke. Biomimicry innovation as a tool for design. in American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition. 2012. San Antonio, TX. Weissburg, M., C. Tovey, and J. Yen, Enhancing Innovation through Biologically Inspired Design. Advances in Natural Science, 2010. 3: p. 15. http://innovationspace.asu.edu/about/biomimicry.php Goel, A. Center for Biological Inspired Design. 2007; Available from: http://www.cbid.gatech.edu. http://www.allianceforwaterstewardship.org http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9142.aspx https://www.biomimicrydesignchallenge.com http://www.ecovativedesign.com Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). Stanford University Web Site, Stanford, CA, http://dschool.stanford.edu IDEO. HCD Connect Web Site, Palo Alto, CA, http://www.hcdconnect.org Biomimicry 3.8 Institute. Design Lens Web Site, Missoula, MT, http://biomimicry.net/about/biomimicry/biomimicrydesignlens/biomimicry- thinking/ Biomimicry 3.8 Institute. AskNature.org Biomimicry Database Web Site, Missoula, MT, http://www.asknature.org

National Academy of Engineering (2012) "Making Value: Integrating Manufacturing, Design, and Innovation to Thrive in the Changing Global Economy." Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://www.nae.edu/Publications/Reports/63405.aspx Adams, R.S., et al., Exploring student differences in formulating cross-disciplinary sustainability problems. International Journal of Engineering Education, 2010. 26(2): p. 234-338.

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