Giorgio Scarpa's Model of a Sea Urchin Inspires New Instrumentation.

Giorgio Scarpa (1938-2012) was an Italian designer, artist and teacher who worked in bionics, topology and rotational geometry. This article describes Scarpa's bionic model of "Aristotle's lantern"--the mouth of the sea urchin. The technical literature on Echinoidea lacks a detailed study of its remarkable mouth mechanism. Scarpa's model is the only known analysis and physical analogue of the mechanism. It is a striking example of geometrical analysis and craftsmanship, bridging science and art. Built in the early 1970s and described in 1985 in Modelli di Bionica, his model has inspired designs for a biopsy harvester and for a mini-rover to collect soil samples on Mars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]