Hyperloop, Pods... and Biomimicry

Innovation is all about taking a systematic approach to finding ideas, refining them and turning them into viable concepts through prototyping. There are many tools and methodologies that you can use to come up with new ideas, validate them and build early prototypes. Design thinking is one of these techniques. Design Thinking puts the customer, the end-user, at the heart of the innovation process. But above all design thinking helps us to observe, unlearn, learn and develop empathy for end-users of the solution. You could say that gaining new insights, prototyping and validation are foundations of design thinking.

But how do you develop new insights? In his book, the Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley, Partner at IDEO, gives us a few hints. Taking on different roles during the innovation process, can help us remove natural biases we might have developed over the years. One such role is the role of the anthropologist; who contrary to a consultant, who often comes with questions biased toward a wanted outcome, only observes and takes notes. This allows you to see things you might otherwise miss. Another such role is what Kelly describes as the cross-pollinator. I like this role, as I often find myself thinking in similar ways... The cross-pollinator is a person who is able to quickly make associations between a problem solved in one area or one industry, and then transpose the solution to another industry.

If we start thinking about cross-pollination and anthropology, then we can also look at transposing solutions in a very broad sense, and this where biomimicry becomes interesting. So what is Biomimicry? Following the definition of the Bio Mimicry institute:

'Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies".

What this means, is that if we take a closer look at nature we might find out that many of the problems we are trying to solve have already been solved in nature, one way or the other. As an example, the picture on the left depicts such a nature inspired design. The SmartFlower solar is a completely autonomous power source using a solar panel design inspired by the functioning of sunflowers. This is cross-pollination at its best. Taking a cross-pollinator approach, I am then wondering if we can apply Biomimicry to other problems like transportation.

Looking at recent development in the transportation area, with inventions like the hyperloop, initial tests done with self-driving vehicles or the usage of pods, I am wondering whether we could inspire us more from nature to make these designs better. When you look at the design of a hyperloop and its pods, doesn't that make you think about pea beans (or maybe not, but you get my point)?

Is there something else we could learn from these designs found in nature to improve the design of transportation systems? There are many organisms in nature that are based on similar pod like designs. They often fit the valuable content into a rigid structure that is protecting the pod.

Expanding on the inital idea, the hyperloop system can be seen as a broadband Infrastructure for physical resources. The pods that will be used inside could be used for many applications. If standardized the pods could be used a movable rooms as in the Hyperloop Hotel application, but I am sure there are many more applications. Why not having pods as movable office rooms, we can rethink the food truck as pods, etc... Is there something similar in nature that could inspire us? Maybe beehives...

Understanding the design of beehives might help us in the design of mass autonomous transit systems, including hyperloops and pods. What if we could learn from the functioning of beehives to better understand how to avoid collisions when building self-driving cars or pods? What if we could learn from bees or other natural wonders? If we have a closer look the bees can be associated with pods and the pollen could associated with the container of the pods. How are these moving within the beehive? How is communication done, so that each bee know what to do and where to go? Is there anything we can learn from that and transpose it to transportation? These important perspectives we need to take if we want to build more sustainable innovations.

I am really curious on learning more in this area. Are there better examples to follow? What are your experiences with Biomimicry and innovation?