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Nature Knows Best: Automated Animals

22 minutes

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View of a workshop studio where three mechanical creatures lay on separate tables, in various stages of construction, with materials including metals, tubes, plastic, and wood.

Robots are built for all kinds of things, and these days, their inventors are looking toward nature to see how animals can help them to do the things that humans can’t. Join Danni Washington as she checks out tiny robots based on manta rays that are helping to fight heart problems, robots that are learning to run as fast as the speediest animals, and giant snake-like robots that are drawing attention to climate change. Part of the "Nature Knows Best" series.

Media Details

Runtime: 22 minutes

Topic: History, Science, Technology
Subtopic: Inventions, Robotics, Science Experiments
Grade/Interest Level: 7 - 12
Standards:

Release Year: 2016
Producer/Distributor: Steve Rotfeld Productions
Series: Nature Knows Best
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Show's intro montage with Danni Washington in the middle, the show's title card, and an airplane overlayed in the back like it's coming into frame.

Two men wearing hard hats stand on a mechanical lift, coating a building's exterior in a layer of white paint. Protective plastic covers the glass doors, windows, and railings.

Bird with white spots on its black wings perches on a tree. Overlaying this photo is a 2-D animation of a silhouetted swarm of flying birds and dozens of neon green dots.

Bald man wearing a T-shirt on a boat in the sea looks over to the right.

Just below the surface of the water, a whale is in the process of rolling over itself on its side.

Danni Washington looks at us, standing in front of a green field, as the show's animated title emerges onto the screen.

Close-up of a golden dragonfly holding onto a stem amid a backdrop of green leaves.

Bearded man wears a metal apparatus strapped to his chest, gesturing with a gloved hand as he talks.

Microscopic imagery compares bacteria cells in neat rows on a sharklet surface versus clusters of bacteria cells on a standard surface starting to spread.

Danni Washington walks outside along a sunny, paved lot.