👨‍🔬🔬 2017 OSC. Biomechanics. The Machine Inside

Tuesday, 14 February 2017 11:34.PM
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Biomechanics: The Machine Inside reveals why all living things —including humans— are machines built to survive, move and discover. Comparing the similarities between muscles and motors, legs and springs, and claws and clamps, it explores the ways marvels of natural engineering have inspired ingenious man-made inventions.

This exhibition comprises seven sections:

Staying In One Piece: Structures and Materials
Learn how plants and animals manage to stay in one piece in a world where the crushing force of gravity, the pressure of water and the wind and the blows of other creatures all work to tear them apart. See how the dome-shaped construction of crabs, tortoises and even eggs provides amazing strength and protection.

Going with the Flow: Pumps and Pipes
Inside every living thing, fluids like blood circulate with a precise pressure, speed and volume to sustain life. See how –without metal, motors, or electricity – living things manage to drain, pressurise, push and recirculate these vital fluids. Five touchable models show how hearts of varying sizes and shapes serve as pumps to push fluid throughout the body.

Surviving the Elements: Insulation and Radiators
Life on Earth must endure the planet’s extreme temperatures. See what strategies and mechanisms plants and animals use to keep warm in icy seas or keep cool in broiling deserts. Using an interactive thermal camera, see how much heat you are losing at this very moment.

Grabbing a Bite: Jaws and Claws
Everything has to eat. But food can be scarce and competition fierce. Witness how animals use their inner machines – their muscles, levers and linkages–to grab on and take a bite. Amazing super slow motion video shows the hard-hitting spring mechanism of the psychedelic-looking Mantis Shrimp.

Crossing the Landscape: Legs and Springs

Whether you are an ant or an antelope, the world is a big place. Examine how living things overcome the forces that hold them in place in order to crawl or gallop across Earth’s surface. Meet MABEL, a bipedal robot that mimics the way humans walk.

Launching into the Blue: Wings and Fins
Only a small fraction of the Earth is dry land. Over millions of years, living things have adapted to the dizzying heights of open skies and the crushing pressure of the deepest seas. View how creatures propel themselves through air and water and learn how flight evolved. «Fly» with an interactive that presents the pros and cons of long and short wings.

Gathering Intelligence: Eyes, Ears and Beyond
Eyes are among evolution’s most elegant gadgets. Look into how yours are an engineering marvel then go beyond the five familiar senses to explore seeing devices that need no light, brain tissue that detects the Earth’s magnetic field and antennae that smell. See how the asymmetric ear openings of a Northern Saw-whet Owl helps it master the challenge of nighttime hunting.

SOURCE: The Ontario Science Centre

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