More Exhibit Design Inspiration: Festo AirJelly

It must be something about the warm weather on Long Island that brings out these "oceany" inspirations! (see my previous Golden Ray post.)

The Festo Corporation created this beautiful remote controlled "AirJelly." It's a little more than a meter across and weighs just under three pounds.

Festo's main website is in German, but they also provide an almost poetic PDF brochure in English about the AirJelly project that outlines the history of gas balloon flight and the analogies drawn between air and water as "fluids." (Apparently many of the early gas balloon gondolas were modeled after the hulls of ships!) This history of gas balloon flight served as an inspiration for the development of AirJelly.

In Festo's brochure, the AirJelly is said to be powered by "peristaltic motion" thanks to a clever adaptive gearing mechanism produced by Festo.

The AirJelly is just one in Festo's mechanical menagerie that also includes "AquaJelly".

I'd love to see an AirJelly inside the atrium of a big museum or airport!