#12 Strategies for Locomotion in Granular Media

Imagine you are inside a swimming pool. If I ask you to start swimming, you can probably tell me several strategies that make you move more or less quickly through the water. But, what if we change the water for sand? Do the same strategies still work? How do you efficiently swim in sand?

With this project, we aim to explore the strategies followed by some animals (such as sand lizards) to move through sand. Using a numerical approach, we will be able to:

- Develop a numerical model to simulate the animal swimming behaviour within a granular medium.

- Study different locomotion strategies and see how they affect swimming speed.

- Try to identify the optimal strategy that maximizes locomotion.

By achieving these objectives, this project aims to contribute to the field of granular matter and enhance our understanding of optimal strategies for granular environments.

Requirements: Good programming skills; the tutoring will be in English.