On our recent road trip to Pittsburgh Temple, we did see few rotating things hitting our car on one hilly , forest slope in Pennsylvania contours. We were amazed at the speed, aerodynamics and the distance they traveled. For brief second we though its some event / toy that someone close by is playing with .... Though the fall of such mico-choppers in hundreds was intriguing, weightage of reaching our destination was overpowering, for us NOT to stop and examine the small wonder ....
Now recently on one of my walking trips around Troy, MI I saw the same little wonder, though not in hundreds but in dozens strewn over the side-walk. Spent good 10 mins on road and 20 mins at house examining the Gods sent inspiration for Helicopter.
Some portion of the information I learned :-
- Known as Samaras
- Inspired a design of a airborne Monocopter Prototype by Lockheed Martin
- In most variants of Maple they take flight in pair and split as soon as they hit the ground
- Hold them against the light and you will see intricate network of stem that help the seed in taking roots
- In a scientific study a Samaras dropped from 50 feets has traveled as much as 150 feets
Hoping to finding more such things during my summer walk and share it with you all ...
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