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Summary Of Coast Beast By Stephen Battersby

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“Coast Beast” by Stephen Battersby is about a Dutch inventor by the name of Theo Jansen, who is a kinetic sculptor and graduated from college with a physics degree in the 1970s and created “strandbeests” which translated to English means “beach animal” or “beach beast”. In this essay it will talk about what makes up a strandbeest and how it could be titled as human-like. Strandbeests have a lot of mechanical parts to them. A strandbeest has plastic mechanical skeletons with many different parts to carry out tasks such as “helping build dunes that would defend the Netherlands against any rise in the North Sea” according to Battersby (page 2). The central spine of the strandbeest is a plastic “crankshaft” which is also known as a rotating rod. …show more content…

One characteristic that is similar to humans is because it is as tall as one: “It stands as high as a person” (Battersby 1). This explains that humans and strandbeests are similar in height. Another way strandbeests are similar to humans is because they have mechanical skeletons. We also have skeletons. Another way strandbeests relate to us is because they are able to walk on their own by the wind. We can also walk. Strandbeests also have many different parts to them that are called human things such as their “spine” aka crankshaft their 11 plastic “bones” and to yellow tubes that form a joint that is similar to a human knee. There are also potential energy air bottles that when enough air is stores, the valves open, and the air is released into a second set of pumps make pistons move and acts like a muscle. This “muscle” moves the strandbeests legs. Jansen even gave these beasts “senses”. The senses work by “the strandbeest veers into the sea, the tube starts to inhale water. The weight of that water changes the air pressure, prompting the beast to change direction,” (Battersby 4). This is very difficult to accomplish and is very interesting because not many “machines” have senses. Jansen even tried to give a strandbeest a brain. This was accomplished when Jansen made a piston with a hole in one side so that it can switch the flow of air from on to off. This is similar to a computer's’ way of turning on and off. But

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