When we talked about soft materials in the wild, in both of my groups we spoke about flower structures. This has been on my mind because the more I look at different flowers, I realize how much sturcutural and movement inspiration can be gleaned from them. The ways in which flowers bloom, opening in a variety of ways, or reducing their physical structure to a more simple silicon mold to gain some of the benefits their shapes afford them.

Unfortunately, I do not have a better name for these other than Milk Weed. I find this shape, specifically the clusters of spongy spheres to be very inspiring as a physical mode of undulation and movement. Imagine a cluster of these inflating and deflating in a pattern which causes a slow rolling motion. I also like that it’s sort of sectional like an orange which also gives some possible direction for how the insides of these spheres might be designed.

The curly tendril shape of garlic scapes also are an appealing source of inspiration to me, because I love the personality this type of curliness affords. There's a very whimsical and natural feeling to it not being a perfect spiral, and I can easily imagine how this might actuate into some type of grabby-soft robot. The bulb on the end also has a lovely flared curved base which could be a great setting for extra inflation of some sort.