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· Biology-inspired
The lugworm (arenicola marina) is the bionic
(biological + technical = bionic)
model for the Polychaeta project. This worm belongs to the class of the polychaeta
(„many bristles“) and is a distant relative of the earthworm. A lugworm
grows up to 35 cm and reaches a diameter of 1 cm.
The conspicuous worm casts, which cover whole beaches, surround the opening
of the l-shaped burrow whose walls are rigidified with slime. By eating sand, the
lugworm absorbs unicellular algae and dead organic particles. Once it reached its
horizontal position, the worm feeds on the sand above which leads to the characteristic
u-shaped tube. The surrounding water transports oxygen as well as food
to the animal. To defecate, the lugworm creeps along the vertical part of its „living
burrow“ and expels the sandy excrements as vermicular casts. Defecation is repeated
every 30 to 60 minutes
In terms of webpage layouts, Polychaeta „eats“ webpage contentdata such as
images and text elements – and produces webpage layouts which are new (and
emergent) to the end users. Layout adaptation is repeated recurrently. :: TOP ::
· History
Polychaeta was launched as a student term project at University of Applied Sciences, Rapperswil
:: HSR :: in cooperation with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,
University of Zurich :: AILAB :: . The idea stems from Andreas Fischer and Dr. Daniel
Bisig (both work at AILab). The first version of Polychaeta was designed and
implemented by Daniel Hofstetter and Adrian Hummel within the scope of their
student project in summer term 2004 at HSR and was continued as their diploma
thesis. :: TOP ::
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