Inventor Keahi Seymour turned to the animal world to invent a pair of souped-up running shoes that allow the wearer to reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour. 

The San Francisco-based Seymour, a "bartender by night and tinkerer by day," was fascinated with speeding ostriches and kangaroos as a child, and used the dynamics of the animals' leg muscles and tendons as a foundation. The result is the "Bionic Boot," calf-high exoskeletal carbon-fiber superstructure that fits over the feet and lower leg, and with external springs and soles mimicking the mechanics and energy storage of an ostrich's Achilles tendon and foot.

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"I gear it as the transportation of the future," Seymour said in an interview with Maker Faire 2014, the inventions expo where he unveiled his invention. "I made it to make a human run faster and jump higher."

The boots are part of the larger emerging science of biomimetics, where designs perfected by billions of years of evolution in the natural world are replicated with man-made technology. Non-reflective computer screens were ultimately inspired by the compound eyes of insects, while engineers in the U.K. are developing a type of industrial "skin" that bleeds to alert maintenance crews of damage to fine or small to be seen by the human eye.

While humans are fairly enduring, they are among the slowest large animals on the planet. The fastest human on record is Olympian Usain Bolt, who hit a top speed of 27.44 mph in his world record time of 9.58 seconds in the 100-meter dash. That carried the runner to the gold medal, but an average cat runs at 30 mph. More over, 100 meters is a relatively short distance. The Bionic Boot could allow wearers a longer stride and greater speed over much longer spans of distance and time.

"Eventually, I'd like to run at 45 miles per hour," beams Seymour.

TagsBionic boot, Keahi Seyour, biomimetics, Ostrich