WINNING THE WAR ON BOREDOM

About 20 years ago I built scale models of a front end loader, a Case 580 Tractor and a Gallion road grader. Over the years, I decided that this was going to be one of my hobbies when I eventually retired.

The big day finally dawned in 2014, but for various reasons I only recently got going on my first “pension project”, a model of a Ratel Attack Vehicle. With the attached photos I would like to share my pleasure and challenges until the final completion many, many hours later.

As you can see, I used a mixture of exotic woods. The only reference point available was a couple of photos taken of a Ratel at the South African War Museum in Saxonwold, Johannesburg. (The fact that I started taking a few measurements soon attracted attention. When I jokingly informed the inquisitive security official that my name was Terblanche and that I intended to build my own attack vehicle, I was ensured of very close continuous surveillance).

Because I wasn’t sure how difficult the project would be, I opted to first make individual parts and only do the assembly once all the parts were completed. The small scale and limited information forced me – but admittedly also gave me the artistic freedom – to invent and build my own suspension. To ensure that the finished product looked authentic I kept as close as possible to the original form, shape, detail and scaled size of the vehicle. (A search on Google revealed how versatile this vehicle really is and how many versions were built over the years.)

I have included some photos taken at various stages of completion, starting with the suspension modules.

After a customary South African strike to demand more regular privileges of coffee and cookies from “senior management” I will decide on my next model. Thanks for a wonderfully educational magazine that keeps our inspirational juices flowing.

is an absolute must for any man and boy.

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Please keep it short and to the point. Regrettably, prizes can be awarded only to South African residents.

on this subject, but the original outright condemnation of it as stated in the response has been tempered by the European and American urological associations in their most recent guidelines.

Regarding brachytherapy for the treatment of localised prostate cancer, it is true that it is an acceptable treatment option that should be discussed between doctor and patient. The original article may have created the false impression that its use is strictly limited to poor surgical risk patients (although brachytherapy in itself wasn’t mentioned, but radiotherapy in general). Bear in mind that the intent of the article was merely to introduce robotic technology in medicine to your generally mechanically minded readership and not to discuss the spectrum of treatment options. EUA guidelines state brachytherapy clearly as a treatment option for low-risk prostate cancer. To state that (it) has better outcomes for “all stages and grades” of prostate cancer than surgery is a gross exaggeration and simply not true.

The statement that “so-called experts in their field do not offer brachytherapy as an alternative “is also completely untrue if he refers to the urologists at The Urology hospital in Pretoria, where we do indeed offer (it) at our hospital.

Regarding the rather slanderous accusa-

34 H uman beings haven’t been around for a very long time. Our greatest technological contribution thus far is the wheel. Controlled explosions are too destructive to be considered a contribution and fire occurs naturally. The wheel is integral to our existence and there isn’t another creature on the planet that can harness its mighty power. Think about it: if you were a lion and could steal one technology from another species, wouldn’t you take the wheel?

Tharalelo Mokgokong is a part-time lecturer at the Tshwane University of Technology, industrial engineer and lifelong fan of biomimicry; he wants us to learn from lions. “Don’t you find it strange that lions can organise themselves on a hunt?” he probes. “They have different strategies for different kinds of prey. Then they arrange themselves. It’s always the fastest one that will start the chase and then the slower ones will box in the buck and the heaviest will jump on its back to bring it down. How do they know to do that? Do they have a meeting before they go out?” ponders Mokgokong.

There’s a lot of truth to his query, but the reasoning is also fundamentally flawed. It’s the separation of humans and animals that is the biggest problem. Assuming that people are on a pedestal above all other animals undermines the very essence of biomimicry. But the opposite Wheras copying processes from Nature is a simple enough process that involves a game of imaginative matching, mimicking the natural world on a cellular level is more involved. The way energy flows through a cell, the point at which it can replicate and even the atomic structures are subject to forces which we don’t fully understand yet. Engineering practice to mimic at this level is an exercise in best effort and constantly adapting to the specific needs of the project. There’s no golden rule. causes a dangerous problem: if humans are considered animals it follows that all of our technology is natural. But why then does it destroy the world?

Before we unpack more of Mokgokong’s world view, let’s go back to where this line of thinking first started.

Humans have always mimicked what we saw in nature to help make our lives easier. Leonardo da Vinci looked to birds to inspire human flight. Isaac Newton contemplated falling apples and gave birth to physics and calculus. Biomimicry, however, was first recognised in 1950 when biophysicist Otto Schmitt created the term biomimetics to describe the engineering of a device to replicate a biological system. In his case it was the Schmitt trigger, which replicates the way a squid’s nerves fire. The technology forms the backbone for a CMOS chip, which you probably use every day if your smartphone has a camera in it.

It’s a fairly new field of study in South Africa, though. Biomimicry SA boasted its first graduate in the field as recently as 2010. Strange, then, that just over the border in Harare there’s a shopping mall (Eastgate Centre) that uses natural means to stay cool. The building is designed to mimic a termite mound and uses about 10 per cent of the energy a conventional building of the same size would use. At the time of completion in 1996 it was a world-first venture, with 31 600 square metres of commercial space (retail and offices) being cooled by Mother Nature.

Practical examples, however, are scarce and it would seem to the untrained eye that the field is still very theoretical in nature. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Claire Mollatt, a former ecologist who is now heading up a phase of the planned Berg River rejuvenation project in the Langrug informal settlement in Franschhoek, is busy with one such example. The project is backed by the Western Cape Government and the Stellenbosch Nature’s cell