1 00:00:02,360 --> 00:00:04,040 Ooh. 2 00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:05,600 Ha-ha! 3 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:07,200 Ooh! 4 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:09,040 Ha-ha-ha-ha! 5 00:00:11,080 --> 00:00:13,720 ALARM CLOCK RINGS 6 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:58,640 Hello viewers, and welcome to my World Of Invention - 7 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,320 the show that irons the jeans of genius 8 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:05,440 and keeps you connected with kinetics. 9 00:01:05,440 --> 00:01:10,480 Someone once said, "Necessity is the mother of invention." 10 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:13,080 Well, not necessarily. 11 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:17,640 Today, we're looking at inventions with another mother altogether, 12 00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:19,720 Mother Nature. 13 00:01:19,720 --> 00:01:23,280 We'll be seeing how she's provided inspiration 14 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:25,440 for many a delightful discovery. 15 00:01:25,440 --> 00:01:29,080 Such as the robot that thinks it's a venus flytrap. 16 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:31,120 Eight dead flies 17 00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:33,520 makes it work for 12 days. 18 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:37,480 And my science correspondent, Mr Jem, proves a dab hand 19 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:42,640 at breathing underwater, thanks to an artificial gill. 20 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:48,280 I'm doing it, breathing air that's been pumped out of water. 21 00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:52,400 And we'll be meeting Mr Theo Jansen, a man who makes 22 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:56,000 perambulating pets out of plastic tubing. 23 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,080 Oh, yes. He does, you know! 24 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:01,120 But first... ELEPHANT TRUMPETS 25 00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:03,160 Shh. Quiet, Kevin. 26 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:05,240 ELEPHANT TRUMPETS 27 00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:08,480 Some machines you might think rather fishy. 28 00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:13,360 Over to you, Ashley m'dear. Why, thank you. 29 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:16,720 I'm sure you'll agree, Wallace, that Mother Nature 30 00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:19,440 is the best inventor of them all. 31 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:24,320 She's been perfecting designs for about four billion years or so. 32 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:29,080 Whether it's a super-extendable tongue for catching bugs, 33 00:02:29,080 --> 00:02:32,680 or elastic tendons for extra jumping power, 34 00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:36,960 or one bizarrely long finger for getting a bit of grub, 35 00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:40,160 Mother Nature is the ultimate engineer. 36 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:47,280 A German technology company has decided to make the most 37 00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:50,840 of nature's great talent for original design. 38 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:55,200 The team here at Festo is turning marine biology into machinery. 39 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:59,560 Their inspiration comes from this spectacular sea creature, 40 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:02,320 the manta ray. 41 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:05,920 They are very energy efficient, they are agile 42 00:03:05,920 --> 00:03:09,800 and they can manoeuvre very easily. 43 00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:14,280 So how do they turn the grace and agility of the manta ray 44 00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:16,680 into high-tech engineering? 45 00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:20,880 Well, they copied the internal structure of its fin 46 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:23,400 to come up with this, a fin-gripper. 47 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:28,920 It's so flexible, you can use it to make a robotic hand so sensitive 48 00:03:28,920 --> 00:03:33,400 that it can pick up easily bruised fruit and veg. 49 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:37,040 But the engineers have come up with a more dramatic use 50 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:43,160 of this fin technology - meet the radio-controlled manta ray airship. 51 00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:46,360 We have here the "fin ray" structure. 52 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,040 We move it up, turn it, 53 00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:52,160 and then move down. 54 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:54,520 Turn it, and move up. 55 00:03:55,680 --> 00:03:58,280 And it's like birds are flying 56 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:02,240 or even if a manta ray is swimming in the water, 57 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:05,680 it's the same behaviour. 58 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:18,080 With its ray-like wings and tail fin, 59 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:21,960 the Air Ray can twist and turn as nature intended. 60 00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:25,680 This is not just an executive toy. 61 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:29,640 With some natural inspiration, we can create flying machines 62 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:34,720 without noisy, gas-guzzling engines or big swirling propellers. 63 00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:40,120 The Air Ray just needs helium to give it buoyancy. 64 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:44,280 But controlling its fins requires an extra set of hands. 65 00:04:44,280 --> 00:04:47,520 Couldn't do that in air-traffic control. 66 00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:54,520 Perhaps air-traffic control may one day be a thing of the past. 67 00:04:54,520 --> 00:04:58,680 Studying penguins under water has inspired the technology 68 00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:00,920 that these are testing. 69 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:05,400 They move without bumping into each other or their surroundings. 70 00:05:05,400 --> 00:05:09,440 Even a mechanical penguin is happier in the water. 71 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:13,960 The artificial fin technology lets them move smoothly and silently - 72 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:19,200 a perfect vehicle to observe marine life with minimum disturbance. 73 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:23,880 But how nice would it be to have a couple of low-flying penguins 74 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:26,120 gently following you around? 75 00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:28,960 Ooh. And Ray and Gunta can come, too. 76 00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:34,160 That all went swimmingly. 77 00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:41,280 Anyway, here's a young lad who brings a new meaning to the old saying, "time flies". 78 00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:44,960 Yes, Wallace, time flies. 79 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:47,640 And sometimes, flies can be time. 80 00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:51,320 Let me explain. Take this clock, for example. 81 00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:57,000 You never need to change batteries or plug it in because it gets energy 82 00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:59,760 from eating these things. 83 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:05,040 Design student James Auger is creating bizarre clocks and lamps 84 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:07,560 with an appetite for insects. 85 00:06:07,560 --> 00:06:11,680 So where did James's ideas come from? 86 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,280 We looked at nature, specifically carnivorous plants. 87 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:19,120 They've got various methods for attracting insects, 88 00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:21,160 then capturing them, 89 00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:25,560 eventually consuming them to create energy. 90 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:29,920 It's in those organisms that we looked for inspiration. 91 00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:33,760 The insect-munching plants that inspire James 92 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:36,440 live in soil that short of nitrogen. 93 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:39,640 They top up their diet with a bug or two. 94 00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:43,840 This is the fly paper clock, inspired by the drosera family. 95 00:06:43,840 --> 00:06:46,680 This plant has got a shiny surface. 96 00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:51,760 Flies are attracted because they think they can get a drink. 97 00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:56,920 Actually, it's sticky so the flies get stuck and they're consumed. 98 00:07:00,760 --> 00:07:06,440 So we have a sheet of fly paper revolving around two rollers. 99 00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:11,360 Flies get stuck to the fly paper, pass over the blade, 100 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:16,080 which scrapes them off into the fuel cell which generates electricity 101 00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:20,080 to turn a motor powering the rollers and the clock. 102 00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:25,160 But how does he turn a fly into a buzz of electricity? 103 00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:32,920 The solution comes from inventive minds at Bristol robotics laboratory. 104 00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:36,880 We want robots to get energy from the environment. 105 00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:42,280 Animals have already cracked this problem because animals eat stuff. 106 00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:46,080 They turn that stuff, biomass, into energy. 107 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:49,880 We want to get robots to turn biomass into electricity. 108 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:54,800 A robot powered by flies? That might just take off! 109 00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:59,480 So, let's meet the fly-powered ecobot. 110 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:06,400 It's all thanks to something clever called a microbial fuel cell. 111 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:08,400 This is a microbial fuel cell. 112 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:11,440 We use bacteria and food. 113 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:14,920 The bacteria munch away on the food. 114 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:21,000 We steal the electricity, the electrons inside of the bacteria. 115 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:24,280 We manage to steal those electrons 116 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:27,400 and that electricity is what powers the robot. 117 00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:31,600 Eight dead flies in the microbial fuel cells 118 00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:33,600 makes it work for about 12 days. 119 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:35,680 Thanks to Professor Melhuish, 120 00:08:35,680 --> 00:08:39,920 maybe one day this will be a renewable energy source. 121 00:08:39,920 --> 00:08:44,360 Insects might be powering more than robots and clocks in the future. 122 00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:47,720 There's never any shortage of flies. 123 00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:50,680 Oh, yes! 124 00:08:50,680 --> 00:08:54,680 We've been thinking about green energy, haven't we, lad? 125 00:08:54,680 --> 00:08:57,800 Or should I say "greens" energy? 126 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:03,880 ELEPHANT TRUMPETS May I proudly present my jumbo generator! Ha-ha-ha-ha! 127 00:09:03,880 --> 00:09:07,720 Kevin here takes the sprouts in one end 128 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:10,160 and after a few moments... 129 00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:12,640 FARTING Thank you, Kevin. 130 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:17,480 He can produce enough gas to run the entire studio. 131 00:09:18,680 --> 00:09:21,280 That's wind power for you! 132 00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:25,600 Speaking of which, let's meet a man who uses wind 133 00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:29,040 in an unusual but rather more tasteful way. 134 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:32,520 He's this week's Inventor Of The Week. 135 00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:38,200 Come with me, Wallace, to a wind-swept beach in Holland. 136 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:43,080 This is home to an incredible creature 137 00:09:43,080 --> 00:09:47,760 that only needs a slight breeze to spring into life. 138 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:51,160 My name is Theo Jansen. 139 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:53,640 We're here in Holland, 140 00:09:53,640 --> 00:09:58,800 where I work every day and try to make new forms of life. 141 00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:01,720 Which keeps me busy 24 hours a day. 142 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:10,280 I put them out on the beaches where they can live in the future. 143 00:10:10,280 --> 00:10:14,360 They don't have to eat. They get energy from the wind. 144 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:22,760 Theo has been making his creatures for over 20 years 145 00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:25,440 and is evolving such clever designs 146 00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:31,320 that he hopes they'll leave home and live in the Dutch sand dunes. 147 00:10:34,680 --> 00:10:39,960 Incredibly, his animal-like creatures are only made from PVC. 148 00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:42,440 He's worked out how these pipes 149 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:48,120 used to cover electric wires, can become a curved foot, 150 00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:51,920 a leg bone and a flexible, hard-wearing joint. 151 00:10:51,920 --> 00:10:56,440 Inventing wind-powered creatures was never going to be plain sailing. 152 00:10:56,440 --> 00:11:00,680 In 1991, he discovered the first of many problems. 153 00:11:00,680 --> 00:11:03,120 The first challenge was walking. 154 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:05,600 The first leg was very complicated. 155 00:11:05,600 --> 00:11:09,400 They had to be a very complicated system. 156 00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:12,840 Then, the second generation came 157 00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:17,640 and what I did was I combined the wheel with legs. 158 00:11:17,640 --> 00:11:21,520 He came up with a way to build a rotating hip bone 159 00:11:21,520 --> 00:11:25,920 and worked out all the different lengths of PVC legs he'd need 160 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:30,760 to turn a spinning hip bone into the perfect low-powered footstep. 161 00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:33,800 This circular movement is transformed 162 00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:36,400 to a complex movement here. 163 00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:39,880 As soon as it has put its foot on the ground, 164 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:44,640 it draws a straight line and the animal stays on the same level. 165 00:11:44,640 --> 00:11:48,440 Getting them to walk smoothly was the first step, 166 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:54,400 but his animals still needed their creator to get them going. 167 00:11:54,400 --> 00:12:00,160 He had to pull them into the wind before they could scuttle back. 168 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:04,080 Theo didn't want to always have to pull his offspring. 169 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:08,720 So the next generation got a propeller. 170 00:12:08,720 --> 00:12:11,080 Then to give them more power, 171 00:12:11,080 --> 00:12:16,240 he borrowed nature's best wind design and gave them wings. 172 00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:20,400 But, you might say, what if the wind stops blowing? 173 00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:24,960 Would he have to come to their rescue? He's thought of that, too. 174 00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:30,480 They can now capture and store wind in a stomach of plastic bottles. 175 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:35,920 The wings are not connected directly to the feet any more, but to pumps 176 00:12:35,920 --> 00:12:40,640 that pump air into lemonade bottles. 177 00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:45,520 You could say this is "pressed wind" and they can use this energy 178 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:52,240 in situations that the wind has fallen away on the beach and the tide would come up. 179 00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:57,880 They have energy in their stomach to reach the dunes and save their lives. 180 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:01,320 Incredible stuff! 181 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:05,920 But before his beach-dwellers can live without their creator at hand, 182 00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:09,760 they have another problem - they're not keen on taking a dip. 183 00:13:09,760 --> 00:13:13,280 Big waves versus a light plastic body. 184 00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:16,160 It's not going to end well. 185 00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:20,000 So his new family have a water-detection system - 186 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:22,240 a tube to pick up signs of water 187 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:25,840 and PVC-built sensors that spring into action 188 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:29,680 and send his water-shy creatures back up the beach. 189 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:35,520 It feels the water. 190 00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:40,720 This will be very important for the beach animals to survive. 191 00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:46,120 Through hours of experimenting and trial and error, 192 00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:50,280 Theo's designs are becoming more and more independent. 193 00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:54,360 What I found about this experience of making new forms of life, 194 00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:59,400 is that you discover the problems which the real creator must have had 195 00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:01,560 creating this world. 196 00:14:01,560 --> 00:14:07,960 These animals will survive on their own. 197 00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:11,320 Like you raise your children and there comes a day 198 00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:15,480 that you kick them out the door and they live their own lives. 199 00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:20,720 Hopefully, they will survive a lot better than they do now. 200 00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:26,000 Then I could die quietly, knowing that I will live on for the beaches. 201 00:14:35,320 --> 00:14:39,080 # Bom-bom-bom Curiosity Corner. # 202 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:42,680 Oh, welcome to Curiosity Corner. 203 00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:46,000 Oh, dear! Looks like a power outage. 204 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:50,600 Not to worry. This calls for power sproutage. 205 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:52,640 Load her up, lad. 206 00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:55,120 ELEPHANT TRUMPETS 207 00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:57,120 FARTS 208 00:14:57,120 --> 00:14:59,320 Ah, there! That's better. 209 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:04,240 So, now, let's shine the spotlight on the humble termite, 210 00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:07,720 and some rather clever creature construction. 211 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:12,080 Clever's the word, Wallace, because from the humble termite 212 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:16,200 we can learn a lot about how to build our own houses. 213 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:18,640 Termites live deep underground, 214 00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:23,440 with up to two million living in one intricately designed nest 215 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:29,200 centred around a huge queen who can live for 45 years! 216 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:32,040 But they do get a rather bad press. 217 00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:36,520 Mention "termite" to anyone from, say, Texas, 218 00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:39,680 it's enough to strike terror into their hearts. 219 00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:47,280 These miniature critters in less than five months can eat you out of house and home. 220 00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:49,920 But here's the curious thing. 221 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:54,400 Termites don't just destroy houses. They build them, too. 222 00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:57,360 Termite mounds. 223 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:03,520 These eight-metre-high towers are built out of sand and termite spit! 224 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:08,400 It seems that these structures can teach us about building. 225 00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:13,080 Not the use of spit, but something else - air conditioning. 226 00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:17,960 What you see here is a natural air-conditioning system. 227 00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:22,160 Termites designed the structure with a labyrinth of tunnels 228 00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:25,640 allowing old or stale or warm air out, 229 00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:28,200 and new fresh air in. 230 00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:34,000 The hot air from the nest rises and escapes out of the chimney. 231 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:36,440 It's such impressive engineering 232 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:40,320 that we've started to build termite-inspired buildings, 233 00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:44,360 like Portcullis House in London, next to the Houses of Parliament. 234 00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:48,480 It's full of MPs' offices, so it needs 14 tall chimneys 235 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:50,840 to get rid of all the hot air. 236 00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:56,360 Termites also inspired this shopping centre in Harare, Zimbabwe. 237 00:16:56,360 --> 00:17:00,200 They keep the insides cool when it's 40 degrees outside - 238 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:03,080 a whopping 90% energy saving. 239 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:05,680 Our termite-inspired buildings 240 00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:08,920 let air blow in through holes in the walls, 241 00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:13,640 but termite mounds don't need these large holes. 242 00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:17,200 Their ventilation system is far more clever. 243 00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:21,520 Construction engineer Rupert Soar is part of a team 244 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:25,600 unearthing just how smart those termites are at building. 245 00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:27,600 ..one, go! 246 00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,560 In 2004, he went to Namibia 247 00:17:30,560 --> 00:17:34,920 to discover exactly how their towers were put together. 248 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:40,440 'We started filling termite mounds with plaster of Paris or gypsum, 249 00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:44,800 'the white material used for leg plaster casts.' 250 00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:47,960 A couple of minutes and that will be set. 251 00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:51,840 Then we built this enormous scanning machine 252 00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:54,280 that we put over the mound. 253 00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:59,920 Then we cut away 1mm at a time, taking away 1mm slices. 254 00:17:59,920 --> 00:18:03,560 We literally photographed each of those slices, 255 00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:06,080 looking down, seeing the structure. 256 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:08,440 We take the thousands of photographs 257 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:11,920 and reconstruct those into a full model 258 00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:15,120 of the inside of a termite mound. 259 00:18:15,120 --> 00:18:19,840 They discovered the insides are incredibly complex. 260 00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:24,840 A network of fine tubes soaks up the energy of passing wind. 261 00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:29,520 The flow of the wind pushes air through the porous soil, 262 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:33,320 allowing the nest atmosphere to mix with fresh air. 263 00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:38,520 It's a gentle ventilation system for a cool fresh home without drafts. 264 00:18:38,520 --> 00:18:44,000 Rupert and his colleagues are sure that we can copy these techniques 265 00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:48,400 for incredible energy-efficient houses of our own. 266 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:52,360 We want to take that digital information from the termite mounds 267 00:18:52,360 --> 00:18:58,000 then start to use the computer to grow skins and even whole walls 268 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,400 for buildings themselves. 269 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:04,280 We can use bricks that soak up energy from the wind 270 00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:06,960 that keep our houses fresh and cool. 271 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:11,040 Houses that could look a bit like these. 272 00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:15,880 Looks interesting. Just not sure where you'd put the bookshelves. 273 00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:20,200 But then, I guess termites aren't bookworms. 274 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:25,160 Yeah. Clever little critters, aren't they? 275 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:28,320 SNIFFING People often ask me, what... 276 00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:30,920 Hey! What's going on? 277 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:34,120 Kevin. Get out of my particulars. 278 00:19:34,120 --> 00:19:36,160 Oh! 279 00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:38,920 Oh. Um... Anyway. 280 00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:42,880 My top five animal-inspired contraptions. 281 00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:47,960 Let's see what my archive librarian Goronwy has got for us. 282 00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:50,000 Right ho, Mr Wallace. 283 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:54,080 For this week's contraption countdown I've got five inventions 284 00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:56,520 inspired by the animal kingdom. 285 00:19:56,520 --> 00:19:58,520 It's these boxfish. 286 00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:02,880 It's from these fish that we got the idea for boxes! 287 00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:08,360 We'd have nothing to put things in and the world would be untidier. 288 00:20:08,360 --> 00:20:10,320 What? Oh! 289 00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:13,160 That's completely wrong! I'm sorry. 290 00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:17,440 Boxfish have contributed to the design of motorcars. 291 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:20,800 Have they really? Well done, boxfish. 292 00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:25,480 Who can guess what animal inspired this? 293 00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:27,520 I'll give you a clue. 294 00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:31,440 It's an elephant. Oh. I've given it away now. 295 00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:34,280 They say elephants never forget. 296 00:20:34,280 --> 00:20:40,800 I'm certain that real elephant won't forget this in a hurry. 297 00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:46,920 This fantastic aquatic robot built by Professor Huosheng Hu. 298 00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:49,560 It looks like a fish. It moves like a fish. 299 00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:51,600 And it comes with chips. 300 00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:53,640 Microchips, of course! 301 00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,600 New technology. Old joke. 302 00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:02,160 I'm not saying that the wheel was invented by this sausage dog. 303 00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:07,240 The wheel has been around for ages. The wheel has always been a-ROUND! 304 00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:12,080 And Hotspur here, who was born with paralysed back legs in 1936, 305 00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:16,960 goes to show what human ingenuity and doggedness can achieve. 306 00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:24,680 If you were inside a shark's skin it used to mean you'd just been eaten. 307 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:26,680 But not any more. 308 00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:30,960 A swimming costume has been modelled on the skin of a shark, 309 00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:33,200 which lets swimmers go faster. 310 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:38,280 Or you could just do what I do and let a real shark in the pool! 311 00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,520 That'd make them go faster. Ho-ho. Brilliant! 312 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:48,040 Here's another item inspired by our fishy friends, artificial gills. 313 00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:52,360 Don't hold your breath. They never got off the drawing board. 314 00:21:52,360 --> 00:21:56,760 Thanks, lad. Mmm... Over to you, Mr Jem. 315 00:21:56,760 --> 00:21:59,280 Thank you, Mr Wallace. 316 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:04,720 400 million years ago primitive life made the ultimate journey. 317 00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:09,080 It crawled out of the sea to begin a new chapter of existence 318 00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:10,680 on dry land. 319 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:13,200 Which is why it sometimes seems odd 320 00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:17,280 that human beings now take every opportunity to get back in. 321 00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:25,400 Dreams of deep-sea adventures are suffocated by one big problem. 322 00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:27,840 Our lungs absorb oxygen from air. 323 00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:31,520 We're not designed to take it straight from water. 324 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:38,000 Being a good inventor, nature solved the problem eons ago by giving fish gills. 325 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,480 Fish make it look so easy. 326 00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:44,680 Their gills filter oxygen that's dissolved in the water. 327 00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:48,880 Compared to fish, we're a bit of a damp squib. 328 00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:53,240 But like so many things in nature, building an artificial version 329 00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:57,000 has had inventors stumped for generations. 330 00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:05,000 Early divers used long tubes from the surface to pump air down to the sea floor. 331 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,080 God knows how that felt! 332 00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:12,920 Then in 1943, legendary marine explorer Jacques Cousteau 333 00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:14,960 perfected his aqualung. 334 00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:20,240 Divers could now take the air down with them and swim around freely. 335 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:24,080 When the tank runs empty, we've got to come to the surface. 336 00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:28,920 To stay down forever, we need a way to mimic the fish 337 00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:32,960 and use the air that's dissolved in the water to breathe. 338 00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:40,160 And, believe it or not, this might not be as far off as you think. 339 00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,920 Alan Badner from Haifa northern Israel 340 00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:48,480 has spent nine years trying to get his underwater breathing invention 341 00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,480 off the drawing board. 342 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,160 He's trying to extract breathable air from the water 343 00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:58,960 so, one day, divers could stay underwater for as long as they want. 344 00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:03,920 I knew there was oxygen in water. The fish use it for breathing. 345 00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:08,320 So the only thing was how we can take this oxygen out and breathe it. 346 00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:14,440 Fish are smarter. They can leave the oxygen in liquid form and breathe it like that. 347 00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:21,400 We have to first convert the liquid oxygen into gas because our lungs need gas oxygen. 348 00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:26,240 What's the ultimate aim? The aim now is for underwater habitats. 349 00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:31,360 Maybe in the future, we'll make it small enough for individual divers. 350 00:24:31,360 --> 00:24:33,960 Maybe in the future we'll all live underwater. 351 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:40,280 'For any of you who fancy living underwater, here's how Alan's invention works.' 352 00:24:41,360 --> 00:24:44,360 If you've ever opened a bottle of pop, 353 00:24:44,360 --> 00:24:47,320 you've probably seen the system work. 354 00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:51,240 Fizzy drinks are made by dissolving gas into water. 355 00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,520 The amount of gas water can hold depends on the pressure it's under. 356 00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:57,840 These are under a fair bit. 357 00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:03,640 If I release the pressure, the water won't hold as much gas and it'll come out as bubbles. 358 00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:08,080 That's what Alan's doing. 359 00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,280 He's reducing the pressure of the water 360 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:13,800 so the dissolved gas bubbles out. 361 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:17,720 Then he needs to collect the bubbles and quickly, 362 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,240 because we need a lot of air. 363 00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,560 So, he makes a whirlpool. 364 00:25:26,360 --> 00:25:30,880 All the bubbles migrate to the centre of the whirlpool. 365 00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:34,080 The dense water is flung to the outside, 366 00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,560 the bubbles migrate to the centre. 367 00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:40,200 Alan then puts a pipe into that column of gas, 368 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,920 sucks it out for a fella to breathe. 369 00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:52,000 In Alan's prototype machine, water is pumped through this pipe 370 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,840 into a plastic drum where it's put into a spin 371 00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,280 which creates the whirlpool. 372 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:04,280 This is attached to a vacuum pump that sucks out oxygen-rich gas 373 00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:09,440 and delivers it as a nice breathable mixture out of this pipe. 374 00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:15,160 This lean, mean marine machine collects enough air from this pool 375 00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,480 to keep someone breathing for 20 minutes. 376 00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:26,640 To prove this is more than "fishful" thinking, he's becoming a human guinea pig. 377 00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:31,360 Soon, Alan's machine has sucked a tankful of air from the water. 378 00:26:31,360 --> 00:26:33,280 This is the moment of truth. 379 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,840 More people have walked on the moon 380 00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,480 than breathed air extracted from water. 381 00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:42,000 Let's see it. I'm so intrigued now. 382 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,000 Wow! Hi, there! 383 00:26:58,000 --> 00:26:59,800 First... 384 00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:04,240 Yeah. I'm just smiling. 385 00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,680 I do. Yeah? Good with that? Right. 386 00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:11,600 Next big question. 387 00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,240 Yes, I do feel like a fish. 388 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:19,520 A fish in a fish tank, maybe. And, finally... 389 00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,160 Sure. Come on. Really? 390 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:35,280 People have been wanting to do this and finally, I'm doing it, 391 00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,200 breathing air that's being pumped out of water. 392 00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:41,720 Alan's invention works. 393 00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:47,960 Clearly, there's no way a diver can carry one of these on their back. 394 00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:52,480 Our dreams of swimming like a fish are still on the drawing board. 395 00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:56,480 Maybe one day, we'll never need to come up for air. 396 00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,120 Alan? Alan! 397 00:27:59,120 --> 00:28:00,960 Oh, Mr Jem! 398 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,640 All that floundering around. Still, I won't carp on. 399 00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,120 ELEPHANT TRUMPETS Hold him steady, lad. 400 00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:12,120 Finally... Oh, no! THUNDERING 401 00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:14,160 He's after me buns. 402 00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,400 Kevin. Bad boy! Sit! 403 00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,440 Stay! 404 00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,320 Oh, Kevin. That's blown it! 405 00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:28,960 Well... That's it for this time. 406 00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,240 Next week we'll be... FARTING 407 00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:35,680 Oh, Gromit! 408 00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,400 Gromit, have you got 50p for the meter? 409 00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,160 If you've enjoyed our show, 410 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,560 log on to our website. 411 00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:02,520 You'll find a fantastic competition, details of our roadshow 412 00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,360 and lots of ways to get you inventing. 413 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,080 Pull your finger out. Get clicking.