The idea was to create a lifelike subject with controllable wings, as part of research testing a hypothesis about male displays of aggression in the species.

ENGADGET: Alt-week 3.2.13: A mission to Mars, robosparrow and facial recognition in fertility treatment

With so many unknowns, the programme teaches participants to treat their start-up as if it were a typical research project, amenable to the same iterative process of hypothesis testing and experimentation.

ECONOMIST: Innovation