Question: Finally! Someone else that loves biology. My question is what do you take from biology for your robotics?

Carson Vogt answered on 14 Nov 2017:

Haha, finally, somebody passionate about something! I totally love biology, and I could go on all day. I hope you reply because it’d be nice to have a discussion on the topic. (Also, you should totally go with drumming 😉 )
So from an engineering perspective, my interests in biology have been a bit variable. Originally, you can look at all sorts of things in terms of aerodynamics and applying natural solutions to things that interact with fluids, such as the bumps on the front of a whale’s flipper improving aerodynamic efficiency for wind turbines, or the boxfish for a surprisingly efficient yet voluminous car shape. Now, I’m interested in genetic algorithms and looking to evolutionary strategies for computer science solutions. These algorithms are really cool “Black Box Optimization” techniques that allow a program to effectively grow and adapt in the environment you’ve placed it.
(As an aside, I was a bit slow in physics during secondary school, but it really started to click for me during my undergrad)