Festo’s bio-inspired robotics work continues to illustrate how nature’s solutions inform advanced engineering. Festo’s *Bionic Learning Network* develops mechanical animals — termed *Bionics* — that replicate biological systems to explore and solve technical problems across automation and robotics. Key examples include: - **SmartBird**: An ornithopter modeled after a herring gull that can take off, fly, and land autonomously using flapping wings that also twist for lift and propulsion. The desig

Snakes in space? In this 1991 lecture, robotics expert Dr. Red Whittaker outlines the potential of "serpentine mechanisms" for space travel. Using footage from a 1990 JTEC assessment of Japanese space robotics, Whittaker demonstrates how these bio-inspired machines could "swim through the environment" without wheels, functioning much like an elephant's trunk to navigate complex obstacles | Computer History Museum