When we look at robots today, we often imagine shiny metal machines with wheels or arms. But what if a robot could grow like a plant? Scientists are now making “growing robots” that build themselves little by little, just like plants add leaves or stems.
Some of the best ideas for these robots come from old plants that lived hundreds of millions of years ago!
Last week, I visited a museum exhibit on prehistoric plants—a truly inspiring source of ideas for biomimicry! The exhibit raised questions about how these ancient organisms overcame challenges using remarkably efficient designs. I even had a chance to talk to a paleobotanist, which further enriched my understanding. This blog post combines my museum visit and those expert insights.
Four ancient plants, four robotics ideas:
- Tree ferns → robots that unfurl in space-saving spirals
- Horsetails → segmented robots with built-in internal pathways
- Early vascular plants → simple, efficient branching for low-power robots
- Ginkgo → seed and leaf structures inspiring protective materials and flexible design
Imagine a robot that builds itself as it moves, extending its body segment by segment like an ancient plant unfurling its fronds. This isn’t science fiction; it’s the cutting-edge field of growing robotics, and some of the best guides for designing remarkable machines might be found not in today’s gardens, but in fossil records hundreds of millions of years old. Growing robots don’t come fully built; instead, the robots add parts to themselves as they move along, much like a plant growing its leaves.
The Growing Robot Revolution
Growing robots represent a fascinating frontier in biomimicry. These machines imitate biological growth by gradually adding material to their bodies, allowing them to navigate complex environments in ways traditional robots cannot. Projects like PLANTOID have already demonstrated that robots can grow like plant roots, penetrating and exploring soil with remarkable energy efficiency. This is the same soft-robotics thinking behind elephant-trunk-inspired robotic arms — nature building flexible, boneless structures that can grow, bend, or extend without rigid joints.
But while modern plant-inspired growing robots show incredible promise, we’re only scratching the surface. The real treasure trove of inspiration lies deeper in Earth’s history, in the ancient plants that first conquered land and survived mass extinctions through sheer engineering brilliance.
Why Look to Prehistoric Plants?
Before exploring specific examples, it’s worth asking why we turn to ancient plants when modern ones seem ideally suited for inspiration. The answer lies in their proven track record. These prehistoric designs survived for hundreds of millions of years, making it through dramatic climate changes, asteroid impacts, and evolutionary pressures that would destroy lesser-thought-out designs.
More importantly, ancient plants often employed simpler but more robust growth mechanisms than their modern descendants. This simplicity translates beautifully to robotics, where elegant solutions frequently outperform complex ones.
Ancient Engineers: Three Prehistoric Plant Models
The Carboniferous Constructor: Ancient Tree Ferns
Tree ferns dominated Carboniferous forests 300 million years ago, and their growth strategy offers a compelling model for growing robots. Decaying plant matter eventually formed coal deposits, giving the period its name, which means coal-bearing. The ancient tree ferns grew through a distinctive process, their massive fronds unfurled in precise geometric spirals, structures we now recognise as fiddleheads.
A robot inspired by ancient tree ferns could deploy its components in the same spiral pattern, creating structures that are both space-efficient during storage and incredibly strong when deployed. Imagine a search-and-rescue robot that could unfurl sensor arrays or communication equipment in controlled spirals, building elevated platforms for better coverage while maintaining structural integrity.
The tree fern’s layered crown growth pattern offers another intriguing possibility. For example, robots that build successive platforms as they grow vertically, creating multi-level operational bases in challenging terrain.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dicksonia_antarctica_kz01.jpg
The Palaeozoic Pipeline: Ancient Horsetails
Horsetails represent one of Earth’s most ancient plant lineages, with ancestors stretching back 400 million years. Their secret to longevity lies in a deceptively simple design: segmented, hollow stems that grow through telescoping extensions, with regular nodes where branches or roots could emerge.
This architecture translates perfectly to robotics. A horsetail-inspired growing robot could extend segment by segment, maintaining internal pathways for power, data, or even fluids throughout its growth. The hollow construction keeps weight minimal, crucial for robots that must support increasingly long bodies, while the segmented design provides natural decision points for branching or tool deployment.
Consider applications in pipeline inspection, where robots could grow through existing infrastructure, or in space exploration, where lightweight, extendable robots could navigate complex terrain while maintaining communication links back to base.
By Ragnhild&Neil Crawford from Sweden – Jättefräken (Equisetum telmateia)-1, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75695935
The Devonian Digger: Early Vascular Plants
The first vascular plants that appeared during the Silurian and Devonian periods (around 400-420 million years ago) were marvels of efficient engineering. These pioneers developed the first true roots and internal transport systems, using simple but effective dichotomous (Y-shaped) branching patterns to maximise their reach while minimising energy expenditure.
Their adaptive anchoring systems—roots that could adjust to different soil types and water conditions—offer inspiration for robots that need to establish stable positions in unpredictable environments. The simple branching algorithms these plants use are mathematically elegant and computationally efficient, perfect for robots with limited processing power.
Ginkgo: Ancient Survivor and Modern Inspiration
Several ginkgo trees were growing outside the Museum, their distinctive fan-shaped leaves catching the light, living fossils that have witnessed the rise and fall of dinosaurs. These remarkable trees evolved over 270 million years ago, making them one of the oldest surviving tree species on Earth. During the Jurassic Period, extinct relatives like Ginkgo huttonii flourished alongside massive reptiles, but today only one species survives: Ginkgo biloba.
Planting a ginkgo tree carries profound significance. Some specimens growing today are cultivated from cuttings taken from ginkgos that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. These “hibakujumoku” (survivor trees) sprouted new growth from their charred trunks, demonstrating the species’ extraordinary resilience—a testament to 270 million years of evolutionary refinement.
Biomimicry Inspiration from Ginkgo
The ginkgo’s ancient design holds secrets that modern engineers and designers are beginning to unlock:
Seed Architecture
Ginkgo seeds feature a remarkable multi-layered protective system that may inspire:
- Impact-resistant materials: The seed’s tough outer shell and cushioning inner layers could inform protective packaging for sensitive electronics or medical devices.
- Self-preserving storage systems: Seeds can remain viable for months, suggesting new approaches to long-term food storage or pharmaceutical preservation.
- Natural antimicrobial coatings: The seed coat’s chemical defence compounds offer templates for self-sterilising surfaces.
Leaf Design Excellence
The iconic fan-shaped leaves demonstrate optimal engineering:
- Efficient fluid networks: The parallel vein structure minimises material use while maximising transport efficiency, which could inspire designs for heating and cooling devices.
- Flexible strength: Leaves bend without breaking in strong winds, informing flexible architectural elements and shock-absorbing materials.
- Modular growth patterns: The tree’s unique branching system could inspire adaptive network designs in urban planning or computer systems.
Survival Strategies
After 270 million years of environmental challenges, ginkgos have mastered resilience:
- Radiation resistance: Their cellular repair mechanisms could inform protective materials for space exploration or nuclear environments.
- Urban adaptation: Ginkgos thrive in polluted city air, suggesting bio-inspired air filtration systems.
- Longevity secrets: Some trees live over 1,000 years, offering insights for durable infrastructure design.
The ginkgo stands as both a window into deep time and a blueprint for future innovation—proof that nature’s oldest solutions often remain the most elegant.
By Ghedoghedo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11271818
Ginkgo biloba leaves during summer.
By James Field (Jame) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3707381
The Paleo-Bot Advantage
Robots inspired by these ancient plants, what we might call “paleo-bots”, would offer several advantages over their modern plant-inspired counterparts:
Proven Durability: These designs survived mass extinctions and dramatic environmental changes, suggesting robust, adaptable architectures that could handle extreme conditions.
Elegant Simplicity: Ancient plants succeeded with straightforward growth mechanisms that are easier to replicate robotically than the complex systems of modern plants.
Environmental Versatility: Early plants successfully colonised diverse and challenging environments, from swamps to dry land, offering tested strategies for robot deployment in varied conditions.
Real-World Applications
The potential applications for prehistoric plant-inspired growing robots are vast:
Search and Rescue: Robots that could grow through rubble using tree fern spiral deployment strategies, creating stable platforms for sensors and communication equipment.
Infrastructure Inspection: Horsetail-inspired robots that could extend through pipelines or tunnels, maintaining communication and power connections throughout their journey.
Environmental Monitoring: Devonian digger-style robots that could establish monitoring networks by growing and branching through forest floors or ocean sediments.
Space Exploration: Lightweight, extendable robots based on ancient plant architectures could navigate Martian terrain or asteroid surfaces, building communication networks as they explore. We explored this idea further in Green Robots to Explore the Oceans and the Moon, imagining how plant-inspired robots might navigate environments humans can’t easily reach.”
Try This With Young Explorers
Spiral Sketch. Find a fern, a fiddlehead, or even a curled-up snail shell. Sketch how it’s coiled, then design a robot arm or sensor that could unfurl the same way — tightly packed for travel, strong once extended.
Segment Builder. Look at a horsetail stem, a bamboo cane, or even a drinking straw cut into sections. Build a simple “growing robot” model by taping segments together end-to-end — what could you fit inside each hollow segment (a wire, a tube, a light)?
Leaf Vein Detective. Find a leaf and hold it up to the light to see its vein pattern. Trace it on paper. Ask: why might branching veins be a more efficient way to move water than one single tube?
Looking Forward: Ancient Wisdom for Future Innovation
The field of growing robotics is still in its infancy. Still, by looking to our planet’s most successful biological engineers, the plants that conquered land hundreds of millions of years ago, we might unlock designs that are more robust, efficient, and adaptable than anything we could imagine from scratch.
These ancient plants didn’t just survive; they thrived for geological ages using principles so sound that many persist today. By combining their time-tested strategies with modern materials and computing power, we could create a new generation of growing robots that embody both prehistoric wisdom and cutting-edge innovation.
The next time you see a fern unfurling or notice the segmented stem of a horsetail, remember: you’re looking at engineering blueprints that have been proven effective for hundreds of millions of years. In a world where we’re constantly seeking sustainable, efficient solutions to complex problems, perhaps it’s time to consult Earth’s oldest and most successful engineers.
After all, when it comes to growing robots, the best ideas might not be growing in today’s gardens; instead, they might be waiting in yesterday’s fossil beds. Does your museum have any interesting treasures that you could use as inspiration?
Explore More Growing Robots Posts
- Growing Robots — an introduction to the growing robotics field
- Green Growing Robot Project — a hands-on project bringing the concept to life
- Green Robots to Explore the Oceans and the Moon — how plant-inspired growing robots could work in extreme environments
AI-generated image.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is biomimicry?
Biomimicry is the practice of looking to nature for solutions, then applying what we learn to design and problem-solving. Instead of inventing from scratch, it means studying how plants, animals, and ecosystems have already solved a challenge — like staying cool, collecting water, or absorbing carbon — and adapting that strategy for human use.
How does biomimicry help address climate change?
Nature has been adapting to extreme conditions for billions of years, so many organisms already hold working solutions to problems we now face at a larger scale — cooling buildings without electricity (termite mounds), collecting water in drought (the Namib beetle), protecting coastlines from storms (mangrove roots), and capturing carbon (corals, forests, kelp). Biomimicry means studying those solutions and applying the same principles to human design.
How can children get involved in biomimicry?
Children don’t need special training to think like a biomimicrist — just curiosity and a habit of asking “how does nature solve this?” Simple ways to start include a backyard scavenger hunt for nature’s patterns, a “design-an-animal” challenge for a changing climate, or building a small model (like a passive-cooling structure or a water collector) inspired by something they’ve observed outdoors.
Is biomimicry only for scientists and engineers?
No — biomimicry is as much a mindset as a profession. Anyone can practice it by observing nature closely and asking design questions. Professional biomimicry practitioners apply it in architecture, materials science, and engineering, but the same core skill — careful observation followed by “what if we built it that way?” — is exactly what this post’s classroom and family activities are designed to build in children.
Åsa Jomård
In 2015, Åsa completed a course in Biomimicry: A Sustainable Design Methodology at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. With over 10 years of experience exploring nature for inspiration and as a former member of Ben, Biomimicry Education Network, she brings both academic background and creative teaching experience to her work. Her materials seamlessly integrate stories, nature observations, and design challenges, making them perfect for inquiry-led learning in early primary contexts.
AI was used as a Thinking Partner.