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Material Possiblities: A Flying Drone Built From Fungus
Nerval's Lobster writes What if you could construct an unmanned aerial vehicle out of biological material, specifically a lightweight-but-strong one known as mycelium? The vegetative part of a fungus, mycelium is already under consideration as a building material; other materials would include cellulose sheets, layered together into "leather," as well as starches worked into a "bioplastic." While a mushroom-made drone is probably years away from takeoff, a proposal for the device caught some attention at this year's International Genetically Engineered Machine competition. Designed by a team of students from Brown, Spelman, and Stanford Universities in conjunction with researchers from NASA, such a drone would (theoretically) offer a cheap and lightweight way to get a camera and other tools airborne. 'If we want to fly it over wildfires to see where it's spreading, or if there's a nuclear meltdown and we want to fly in to see what's going on with the radioactivity, we can send in the drone and it can send back data without returning,' Ian Hull, a Stanford sophomore involved in the project, told Fast Company.
So, the expensive parts of a drone are not the motors, electronics, battery, camera... but the chunk of plastics holding it all together?
'Flying high' could be interpreted in various ways.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's a laudable research goal, more likely as a way to design surveillance devices that are somewhat less detectable than drones made of plastic and bits of metal.
In either of the examples offered, however, the ubiquity and cheapness of drones already suggests that they'll simply be treated as a disposable, no matter WHAT they're made of, unless - as is the constant hurdle for bioplastics in pretty nearly every field of potential use - they become somehow cheaper than normal plastics. In a wildfire or nuclear meltdown, nobody's going to give a flying (get it?) hoot about a dozen ounces of slagged plastic crashing to earth in the area.
-Styopa
An unmanned vehicle made of light yet strong biological material? So, a bird?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This is a start!
It's this kind of thinking that will bring us closer to Vorlon tech, LEXX, or even Moya! =)
(did I miss any?)
Seriously, as others have pointed out, the most expensive valuable parts are not the airframe, but the motors/camera/radio/battery so stop the hippy-dippy crap and don't worry about making it out of biodegradable material.
But seriously, keep working/thinking in this direction.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
PETA
There is currently no reason to believe that plants experience pain, devoid as they are of central nervous systems, nerve endings, and brains.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
When we see carpet made from fungus, then we'll really be in trouble.
The idea that you could send one of these drones in a sensitive environment and leave it there seems off. Yeah, the air frame biodegrades, but not the motors, electronics, and the most toxic part the battery.
So they are trying to make a drone from a biological material?
Just 3d print it from PolyLactic acid, The stuff is made from corn and is biodegradable. On top of that it is only $18 a 2kg spool on ebay. :P
If it is a flying fungus, then it is not a drone, but a manta!
existential threat if we grant it to fungi.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
We've got flying cyborg undead fungus!
Also known as wood
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
I saw a flying mushroom once. I'm pretty sure it was due to consuming a mushroom I found in a field though.
John Cleese instructing someone on what to do if they're attacked with a mushroom.
They're gonna kill the exocomps all over again.
Silk road III can sell shrooms that deliver themselves! No more self-identifying trips to the post office.
So it should take another 10 to 15 years until we can start growing Vorlon like spaceships, right? ;-)
Don't be fooled into thinking that "kombucha leather" (aka SCOBY leather) is suitable for this application.
Kombucha/SCOBY is interesting stuff, and yes, the SCOBY mat can be dried out to make a "leather-like" substance.
That is -- SCOBY leather is "somewhat leather-like" when perfect dry.
It's also hygrophilic, meaning it has an affinity for moisture.
In other words, it's always kind of damp and sticky, even in a relatively dry environment.
Expose it to rain, and you've got a sloppy, slippery, un-leather-like mess on your hands. I say this from personal experience.
Also, it smells like cat urine.
-kgj
"What if you could construct an unmanned aerial vehicle out of biological material..."
That has to be the classiest way I've ever heard anyone describe a loogie before!
Really, look at their website and see the entire scope of their work. The blurb makes it sound like just UAV but it's much more and farther reaching. Very cool indeed. This UAV part, is on their, but it's just an extension of their core work. Totally sci-fi in a way, maybe of things to come.
Drow and Dwarves have been doing it for millennia.
You're suggesting that instead of giving it some simple sensors and a radio, we task a satellite capable of real-time spectrographic imaging with sub-decimeter resolution in order to spot the changes in color of some oversized flying test strip?
Spirit and Allegiant Airlines already have this technology running commercial flights.