Scenario
Bee populations worldwide have been threatened by massive deforestation, climate change, and other factors. Indigenous bees in particular are threatened when traditional agriculture gives way to clearcutting, monoculture, and pesticides. Fewer bees mean fewer pollinators, fewer crops, and less plant diversity.
Speculative design
Polli is a speculative design project made to spread awareness about the declining bee populations and it is one possible solution to solve the increasing pollination problem.
Technology
Polli’s relies on a few technologies that don't exist or that aren't developed far enough. Polli’s only goal is to pollinate as much as possible, it does so by brushing past the stamen of the flower with its hairy legs and transferring it to the other flowers. It navigates with information from the cloud and uploads information to the could. Polli is in great numbers, this means more data, the more data the smarter and efficient Polli is at its job. Polli can “see” through the cameras that can be found in the “head” of Polli.
Biomimicry
Polli needs to be precise while flying to scan the area for pollination and data collection but also to safely land on flowers. To be able to to this it needs a steady flight, it does so by mimicking the way dragonfly's fly.
Polli collect energy from the sun by sunbathing like butterfly's do. The solar sells are like the ultrathin solar cells that exist today but aren't made from precious metals.
Polli needs to be as efficient as possible at pollination it needs to be in areas where flowers are blooming that happens in spring and summer. But when autumn begins Polli does something unique, it migrates. It goes to the other hemisphere where it will be spring. To safe itself from a possible dangerous journey it attaches itself to a birds leg that is about to migrate (this way of attachment doesn’t hurt the bird).
To expand and collapse the wings a metal wire made of Nitinol a Titanium and nickel alloy is used.
This alloy has a special little trick. Under higher temperatures, the metal enters the Austenite phase. In this phase the Alloy is strong and the shape it has in this phase is like memory foam it remembers this shape. The metal enters the Martensite phase during low temperatures. In this phase, the metal feels rubbery and bends easily.
This technology makes the wings smaller during migration to protect them against bad weather. The austenite phase is when the wings are big for flight, but when autumn is approaching and the birds are ready to migrate the wings have entered the martensite phase which means Polli can now fold its wings, it does so by pulling on the Nitinol wire. After the birds have landed, Polli will be in a warmer climate and the wings enter the austenite phase so they will unfold themselves automatically.
The world (speculative)
