Penquins to fly at Big Bang!

Festo’s famous bionic AirPenguins are poised and ready to fly at The Big Bang Fair 2012 – Britain's largest science, technology and engineering fair for young people. Attracting considerable attention whenever they perform, the AirPenguins will undoubtedly be one of the fair’s highlights. Set to fascinate visitors with their graceful aerobatic agility as they fly around the exhibition hall, they provide a thought-provoking insight into the types of energy transfer and behavioural mechanisms that could form the basis of future automation technology.

The Big Bang Fair aims to inspire young people about careers in science and engineering, and to help 11-14 year olds choose their subject options at school. It is also guaranteed to provide a fun, yet educational day out for all 7-19 year olds. The environment is a bit like a cross between the Science Museum and a theme park, enabling everyone to gain hands-on experience of some of the most world’s most exciting science and engineering technology. This year’s event is likely to attract more than 35,000 visitors, including some 5,000 teachers.

Festo’s AirPenguins are renowned for their aerial beauty, but they really need to be viewed close-up to appreciate how engineers have created these bionic creatures, using mechanisms copied from the movement of fishes and rays. So although they will be flying each day – every hour on the hour, for 10-15 minutes – they will also be present on Festo’s stand.

The stand will additionally feature a number of hands-on interactive displays, aimed at encouraging children to think about engineering concepts. Also on show will be other recent bionic developments from Festo’s Bionic Learning Network, which is an alliance of educational establishments and specialist companies tasked with exploring bionic solutions for automation applications of the future. These will include the Bionic Handling Assistant, a unique handling system which takes its inspiration from an elephant’s trunk, and the FinGripper adaptive gripping device, which embraces the way fish and rays convert energy into movement. Some of these developments have already transferred from research to production, and are now being used to considerable benefit in complex machines such as industrial robots.