Mechanical engineering students have invented a way to capture slow-motion video of birds. Stanford professor David Lentink and his students are looking at the flight of birds to discover a better robot and they are looking to birders for help. From Bjorn Carey's article in the Stanford Report:

In order to build a robot that can fly as nimbly as a bird, Lentink began looking to nature. Using an ultra-high-speed Phantom camera that can shoot upwards of 3,300 frames per second at full resolution, and an amazing 650,000 at a tiny resolution, Lentink can visualize the biomechanical wonders of bird flight on an incredibly fine scale... 

Every time Lentink's students take the camera into the field, they have the potential to make a groundbreaking discovery. Thousands of birds have never been filmed with a high-speed camera, their secret flight mechanics never exposed...

Search-and-rescue is one of the more attractive applications for robotic planes, particularly scanning a wide urban area for survivors after a natural disaster. The unpredictable environment will demand robots that can better deal with changing conditions.

Mini-copters and planes often stall at steep angles, or when they get caught in a gust of wind. They have difficulty avoiding other airborne objects, and fly clumsily near buildings.

Lentink and his students have already begun applying the lessons they've learned from birds to various robotic designs.

Interested birders need to fill out this questionnaire and can email questions to birderquestionnaire@gmail.com.

(Via Stanford Report)