Bionic Flower Experimental Set

These mechanisms of action are simulated with sensors and actuators and can be learned in a playful way by students in class.The attractive design that mimics the natural model and the transfer of principles from the plant world to technology add new fascinating topics to Festo’s STEM curriculum.

The basic functions of the robot flower can be used without programming. Furthermore, the microcontroller can be programmed with the graphic coding interface “Open Roberta”.

In the "Bionic Flower" course, students discover how flowers behave in their environment and how they optimally adapt. Based on this, there are simple hands-on experiments with paper on the topic of folding structures. On the subject of the importance of light, special attention is paid to the technical realization in the form of LEDs. But also the technical realization of sensor and actuator technology in relation to the natural mechanisms of action of the water lily and the mimosa are explained.

You are interested in the Bionic Flower? Get in touch!

Assembly instructions

The Bionic Flower is a robot flower inspired by the world of plants. In the video we will show you a detailed step-by-step assembly of our Bionic Flower Experimental Set.

• Watch video on Youtube!
• Download the general assembly instruction (pdf)

Tutorial

Are you excited about the fascinating plant world? Did you ever wonder how plants open and close their petals due to external influences such as touch or light? In the video, Dr. Reinhard Pittschellis from our Bionics4Education team is talking about bionics and the function of our Bionic Flower.

More experiments

Design your own petals

• If you want to make your own folded petals from regular paper, we have created a template for you. Of course, you can then also design your petals individually. Download our "flower petals" template (pdf)

Easy Paper Experiment for folding structure

• Some plants use special folding structures to adapt even better to their living conditions. If you want to find out for yourself which stability can be realized by corresponding folding structures, try this experiment. Download our "sandwich" template (pdf)

• You can find instructions in our Festo LX course "Bionic Flower.

21st Century Skills

The bionics learning construction kit can be developed in teamwork. A team can consist of two or more people. This gives an idea of how interdisciplinary development teams work together in projects, for example in industry, in order to jointly develop a product. These fosters e.g. four key competencies for the digital age like communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.

As soon as the team is formed, common goals have to be defined. Only then can everyone work efficiently towards the same goal. The following questions should be asked in the team first.

Ask these questions in your team:

• What kind of flower do we want to build?
• Should this robot flower be based on a certain biological model?
• What should the robot flower be able to do?
• What do we want to learn from the real thing?

In order to put together certain task packages in a team, it is helpful to proceed in a structured manner and with a division of labor. Among other things, project management helps here. Project plans provide a simple visual overview of a project from start to finish and lead to a higher work efficiency of the team members.

Further information on how to create teams in a playful way visit "Teamwork”

For tips on how to implement the project, you will get a list of tasks that are necessary to build the bionic inspired flower. You can develop a project plan that identifies tasks assigned to each team member that need to be completed within a certain time frame.

• Download project plan (pdf)
• Ideas for teaching classes (pdf)