The Origin Of Ideas
What Charles Darwin and a unique advance in biorobotic technology can teach us about where good ideas originate.
Teaching Robots To Walk On Mud
Quadruped “robot dogs” broke the internet when they hit the scene. They’re futuristic, dystopian, and look like a scary version of Goddard from Jimmy Neutron.
Robot dogs are suitable for application across most terrains, but they have an achilles heel. A biorobotics professor, who has grappled with this problem remarks:
“Muddy and slippery terrains are some of the most difficult to traverse for robots and animals.
This means that most robots cannot access a wide range of highly important terrestrial environments, including wetlands, bogs, coastal marshes, river estuaries and fields, which are abundant in nature.”1—Maarja Kruusmaa
Quadruped robots aren’t equipped to maneuver through mud—a significant limitation worth solving.
In November 2024, Maarja, and her team found a solution which came from an unexpected place.
Moose Hooves
Split-hooved animals, like moose, are built to handle the muddy conditions that the quadruped robots could not.
Despite weighing up to 1,400 lbs—the hulking moose are able to navigate muddy ground with ease. The key is in their feet.
Moose hooves spread out and contract during each footfall, thus adjusting the exposed contact area.
“Mud acts in a similar manner to a wet bathroom tile, creating suction under the animal's feet, making it difficult to get the leg out. Moving hooves breaks that tension."2—Simon Godon
The researchers built their own version of horse hooves, slapped it on a quadruped robot, and took it for stroll in the Estonian woods. They found:
46% reduction in sinkage depth in the mud.
70% decrease in energy cost when walking through the mud.
55% increase in speed on muddy terrain.
They also found no disadvantages of the hooves when tested on hard ground.
The solution, as it turns out, didn’t come from an entirely new idea, but from a combination of old ideas.
The Origin Of Ideas
Contrary to popular belief, most good ideas don’t appear from a strike of inspiration. Great ideas emerge after a long period of stewing over the semblance of an idea without yet being able to fully articulate it.
Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, calls this “the slow hunch”.3 A slow hunch is a sense that you’re on to something particularly interesting about a problem—a hunch that develops over a long period of time.
For example, Charles Darwin’s commonplace book contained the modern theory of evolution, albeit in a disjointed manner strewn across many notes and diagrams across throughout his notebook. It took two months after compiling all the raw notes until he ever considered Nature Selection a theory. And another 20 years until his work was complete.4
To bring us back to the robotic dogs with moose hooves from before, Simon Gordon was one of the researchers for the project. Godon’s parents have a cattle farm—a hoofed animal. He combined observations from cattle with knowledge of mechanical engineering. It’s possible that he acted on his own slow hunch that’s been stewing over time.
Combining Old Ideas Using Principles
Good ideas rarely appear out of thin air. More frequently, they’re a unique combination of things that already existed. James Webb Young, author of A Technique for Producing Ideas quips that “an idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements”.5
When combining old ideas, James Webb Young emphasizes the importance of understanding the principles that underlie the system.
“In learning any art the important things to learn are, first, Principles; and second, Method. This is true of the art of producing ideas.
Particular bits of knowledge are nothing, because they are made up of what Dr. Robert Hutchins once called rapidly aging facts. Principles and method are everything.”—James Webb Young
Previous laboratory experiments of moose feet revealed the principles that enable moose to navigate through mud. The biorobotics researchers had a firm grasp of the underlying principles of physics that enabled split hooves to break the suction force from the mud.
"We found that the moose's hoof behaves similarly to a suction cup, like how you manage to stick your fingernail under its surface and break the suction force."6—Simon Godon
Had they not understood the underlying principles, they may not have even give the far fetched approach a chance.
Don’t Reinvent The Wheel, Combine Elements Into New Iterations
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to have a great idea. More often you just have to combine already existing elements, to make the wheel better.
For both the researchers in Estonia and Charles Darwin, they just had to look elsewhere for inspiration. And have the patience to let the good idea grow into something useful.
—Grant Varner
EurekAlert. Robots can now walk through muddy and slippery terrain, thanks to moose-like feet. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1069384
Popular Science. Dog robots can trek through mud using moose-inspired hooves. https://www.popsci.com/technology/robot-moose
Johnson, Steven. Where Good Ideas Come From – Talks at Google. YouTube, uploaded by Talks at Google, 7 Oct. 2010.
Gruber, H. E. (1981). Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity. University of Chicago Press.
Young, J. W. (2003). A Technique for Producing Ideas. McGraw-Hill Education.
TechXplore. Robots can now walk through muddy and slippery terrain, thanks to moose-like feet. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-robots-muddy-slippery-terrain-moose.html
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