The Kingfisher

My five year old son C has been really into big vehicles, ships, trains, and airplanes. He likes to read about them and always has tons of questions or facts to share. On the way to swim lessons one day, we started to talk about bullet trains.

He told me that bullet trains was the fastest train. I asked him if he knew what happened when they first started to make bullet trains pass through a tunnel. He said he had no idea, and I told him that it used to create a big sonic boom that disturbed everyone living around the tunnel.

That was a horrible problem for those people and after a while, they figured out a solution by observing nature. C was so intrigued by this concept. I told him that nature had already solved a lot of different unique problems through evolution. All kinds of living things needed to change their strategy in order to survive.

The kingfisher was a type of bird that inspired the shape of the bullet train. I talked to C about how the shape of its beak helped it swoop down to catch its prey. They have long sharp pointed beaks to catch fish. Their beaks helped him break the plane of the water and be successful hunters. Engineers observed this bird and decided to change the shape of the bullet train to match the kingfisher’s beak.

After reshaping the front of the bullet train, the bullet train no longer made the sonic boom when going through tunnels. C was so excited about the kingfisher that he wanted to see what the bird looked like while I was driving. I told him I would show him after swim lessons since we were running late (as usual!).

When swim lessons were done, the first thing that he asked me was to see a picture of the kingfisher. I had honestly forgotten, but I was happy to take my phone out and search for a picture. I showed him a picture of the kingfisher’s beak and then I also showed him what the front of the bullet train look like. It did indeed look somewhat similar and it’s awesome that nature helped solve an engineering problem.

C was excited to tell everyone what he learned when he got home. Even after a few days, he kept talking about the kingfisher and the bullet train. It’s so cute when these things stick with your kids. It makes all of these different conversations meaningful, even if I sometimes forget to follow up like I did after swim practice that day. Whenever I do forget to follow up, I know I can count on my kids to remind me - it’s what they do best when they are curious!