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1. Why seahorses tail are squares?
SCIENCE ENGINEERING INSPIRED BY NATURE
GROUP 1 | SIF2004/SMES2204 MECHANICS | SEM 1 2017/2018

2. PAGE 1
Project Overview
Although the predominant shapes of most animal tails are cylindrical,
seahorses tail are square prisms in their cross-section. The skeleton of their
tail consists of a bony armor arranged into several ring-like segments
composed of four L-shaped plates that surround a central vertebra.
These plates articulate with specialized joints that facilitate bending
and twisting, as well as resist vertebral fracture from crushing. Muscles
attached to the vertebral column transmit forces to the bony plates to
provide motion for grasping and holding on to objects such as sea grasses,
mangrove roots, and coral reefs, which allows them to hide and rely on
camouflage when evading predators and capturing prey.
the square cross-sectional architecture of a seahorse tail improves
mechanical performance in prehension (grasping ability) and armored
functions (crushing resistance), relative to a cylindrical one. Exploration of
these biologically inspired designs provides insight into the mechanical
benefits for seahorses to have evolved prehensile tails composed of
armored plates organized into square prisms.
Beyond their intended practical applications, engineering designs are
convenient means to answer elusive biological questions when live animal
data are unavailable (for example, seahorses do not have cylindrical tails).
Understanding the role of mechanics in these prototypes may help
engineers to develop future seahorse-inspired technologies that mimic the
prehensile and armored functions of the natural appendage for a variety of
applications in robotics, defense systems, or biomedicine.

3. PAGE 2
Team contribution
Taking the role as the Project Designer, Nor Fadilah Binti Pikau
(SIF160060) led the whole team by delegating and supervising tasks to the
group members. She offered various insights related to the project in order
to ensure this project a successful one.
The Technical Team are composed of members Aina Izzati binti Mat
Dah (SIF160004), Muhammad Hussin bin Abdul Jabar(IIS150012( and Che
Sulaiman Muttaqin bin Che Umar(IIS150003). They were assigned to
explore and collect resources in order to develop feasible concepts and
ideas for the project’s presentation, in addition of designing a suitable
model to imitate the seahorse tail’s mechanism clearly.
Meanwhile, Sanjeev Raj A/L Gopal(SEM150057) was appointed to
prepare the presentation slides with beautiful designs, exciting videos and
pictures, and most essential, the simple but critical descriptions and texts.
The product of this task will later be consumed by Muhammad Shahrul Arif
Bin Adi Rumi(SIF160050), the Science Communicator of the project. His
affair was to engage with the audience of the project’s presentation and
effectively explain them our project’s ideas and concepts with befitting
communication skills.
Figure 1 : Our humble
model in mimicking the
mechanism of a seahorse
square tail by using a
ribbon, straws as muscles
and egg cartons as skeletal
plates.

4. PAGE 3
Reflection
The project was a success, with slight improvements needed for
future project plans.
First and foremost, the brainstormed ideas of the project were not
agreed upon until the middle of the given duration of the project. This
setback was probably the roots of the proceeding weaknesses of this
project. Many ideas were proposed such as the boneless elephant’s trunks,
bugs that harvest water from desert fog and mechanism of cats surviving
from high falls. Later on, the square seahorse tail was majorly
acknowledged because the concept is interesting and easy to manifest.
Moving on to the model of the project, since we were low on
monetary resources, we decided to restrict the budget on the seahorse tail
model by making use of recyclable materials which were ribbon as the
joints, straw as the muscles, and egg cartons as skeletal plates, which were
shaped as circles and squares by simple handwork. They satisfied their
purpose in mimicking the comparison of round and square tails by applying
relatively low pressure, and showed that square tails enjoyed more surface
contact than circle’s by entangling a cylindrical cardboard.
On the bright side, we successfully gave our presentation to the
audience in an engaging and inspiring environment. Our Technical Team
managed to hoard suitable resources and displayed the best of them, which
we started by having the idea of how real life seahorses are, then
proceeded to 3-D models research done by a research team from Oregon
State University, and finally videos of real seahorses gripping on a dowel.
As our final remark, we are entertained by handling this project, that
we were able to experience the thrill in exploring various future prospects
in multidisciplinary studies, in addition of developing our teamwork and
communication skills. We hope and are eager to take up many more
chances and exciting issues in the near future.