What It Takes to Build a Hook for the Flagellum

You've just been hired as a software engineer. Your first project is to write code that will operate robotic machines. The robots need to build a high-speed universal joint and fasten it to a shaft that will rotate at high speed. The code needs to select materials that can tolerate the high stresses they will face, and arrange them into flexible, mutually-reinforcing configurations that will provide high performance and fault tolerance over many cycles of switching between prograde and anter...