The course describes a wide range of plant and animal mechanisms, structures and materials, chosen for their outstanding mechanical performance. Their principles of function will be dissected and characterized and their implementation in an engineering environment illustrated. In many instances these are already available as products, but other examples will be given where a product is ready for exploitation, or where there is a market need for a product which could be satisfied by a known biomimetic principle. Topics will include, but not be confined to, composites and ceramics, deployable structures, flight, thermal properties, sensing and simple biorobotics. A mechanism (currently under development at Bath University, UK) will be described by which transfer of technology from biology to engineering can be made more transparent and essentially deskilled.