Human powered flapping flight is just a matter of using the right shape of flexible foam wings to smooth your body into the air, but flexing any material as a part of the flight will make it so that the wings will always be falling apart.

To fix this we need 3D magnetic chain mail where each module is suspended from the next by magnets so that the overall effect is that the extension or contraction of the material will not be wearing anything down but the magnetism of the parts.

Each cubical module could have three open sides, inward facing magnets on the inside, and three sides with extended arms with back-facing magnets at the end. Each arm would enter the side of the adjoining module and be suspended from it by the repulsion between the arm magnet and the inside magnets of the next module.

That is a pretty poor attempt at a solution but you know what I mean.
-- JesusHChrist, Jun 03 2016

3D Chain Mail http://paulbourke.n...ometry/chainmail3d/
maybe the simple solution is that these rings are all magnetic [JesusHChrist, Jun 04 2016]

// Human powered flapping flight is just a matter of using the right shape of flexible foam wings //

... and developing hollow bones, a total reconfiguration of the thorax muscles, a modified cardiovascular system, atrophied legs, and a complete change in the way the skull is articulated. Oh, and abandon mammalian reproduction in favour of the oviparous path.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 03 2016


I don't know about you, but there are some aspects of mammalian mating that I'm in favor of.
-- normzone, Jun 03 2016


I'm not going to give your completely false premise a pass. The material science problem with human powered flight isn't "[flexing any material as a part of the flight will make it so that the wings will always be falling apart]". It is, essentially, given even perfect additional parts the human organism isn't laid out with a balance of parts capable of takeoff, and even sans legs and such the muscle in the torso isn't laid out or inclined to the task.
-- WcW, Jun 03 2016


As such, the inclusion of magical magnets in any arrangement provides no solution nor directs in no way a path to human powered flight.
-- WcW, Jun 03 2016


//some aspects of mammalian mating that I'm in favor of.

I don't remember that far back...

If this could be made to work, it would be kind of cool..how about ferrofluid in competing magnetic fields, with an extra magnetic field to make the shape of someone's lips blowing a raspberry, for the purposes of taunting the enemy?
-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 04 2016


// the muscle in the torso isn't laid out or inclined to the task. //

We said that already.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 04 2016


Furthermore, this idea isn't even guaranteed to achieve its stated (unhelpful) goal of being immortal to mechanical fatigue: The magnets experience internal stresses due to the interaction of their fields, and these stresses change as the magnets move relative to each other. This is likely to eventually wear out the magnets mechanically, such that they crack, and when magnets crack, they don't work that well. Also, whatever material the magnets are mounted on/with will also experience stresses, and these stresses will also change during operation, leading to fatigue of the mounting material.
-- notexactly, Jul 03 2016



random, halfbakery