Author: Brittany Korfel

Mimic a Frog

Problem:

Getting rid of mosquitoes that carry dangerous diseases without the use of pesticides that hurt the environment.

One disease that can spread for the mosquitoes is the Zika virus; even the name is a little scary. We do not have the Zika Virus in Oregon. The Zika virus damages the brain and muscles with a disease called Guillain-Barre Syndrome(gee-lan-bur-ay syndrome)

Biomimicry Idea:

Mimic how a mosquito is drawn to CO2 to find it’s food from a mammal in order to catch the mosquito around people’s homes.

I will build a device that lets out carbon dioxide from a light hidden in a camouflage box. This will attract the mosquitoes to the CO2.  The box  will have a night vision sensor that doesn’t allow the top to move because like a frog it doesn’t move its neck. There will be a medium size gap in the middle so that it will attract mosquitoes.  When frogs blink they push down their eyeballs to squeeze the food from their mouth down into their throat. The box would do the same thing and trap the mosquito.  This should only be used in areas with a mosquito who carries a disease like Zika.  Mosquitoes who are healthy are an important food source to swallows and other insect eating birds.

 

image

This  trap will release CO2 to attract mosquitoes.  Mosquitoes are attracted to CO2.

Unknown-2

Mimic a bee

Problem:

It takes people a long time and effort to harvest each plant and it takes a lot of time out of their day. Sometimes not enough food is harvested when it is just hand picked.

IMG_1693A Bee glove  to collect berries Notice the spikes that help you collect berries more easily when you are hand picking them.  They act like bee body hairs that collect the pollen from a flower.

Biomimicry Idea:

Mimic how a bee collects pollen. Pollen gets stuck on the bee’s  small hairs and on the legs of a bee. That helps the bee harvest the pollen faster than picking one little piece of pollen at a time.  Humans can mimic a bee by  harvesting raspberries with a “Bee glove” that collects the berries.  This glove would be covered with thorns or rakes on which the berries get stuck.  This is just like using the small hairs on a bee.  It will make a kind of machine to help harvest plants so people don’t need to spend a lot of time harvesting by hand.

imageBee Facts

-A queen bee will lay over 1,50o eggs a year

-All worker bees are female and will do all the work but when winter comes they will kick male bees out of the hive to die

-The bees use honeycomb sells to store the babies and necter

-Male bees are called drones. They mate with the queen

-Bees have straw like tongues so they can suck up necter

-Bees carry pollen on their legs in small sacks with small hairs

-Bacteria can not grow in honey

7224224332_5dd85e3d64_b