Ideas

Design options / iterations:

system design

1. biodiverse ecosystem which includes other organisms (crabs, starfish, mussels); the more diverse it is the healthier it is.

• humans increase biodiversity
• or, several ecosystems on display with varying biodiversity

--> too complex; requires designing many different organisms

2. Whale fall ecosystem: carcass of whale which creates complex ecosystem

--> hard to simplify; hard to represent visually & physically (big system with lots of small organisms)

3. Invasive species in ecosystem: 3-level food chain in which human is at the top. Predator's presence scares away 2nd tier which leads to growth of 3rd tier.

--> we decided to take this angle; pretty simple interaction and easier to implement.

organism design

1. Initial research was in kinetic art and biomimetic art, but it was hard to extract any ideas of new organisms just from that.
2. After researching some deep-sea creatures, our thoughts centered around getting inspiration from those: see pinterest board here. Of particular interest was the Crinoid. Tried to sketch simplified / inspired versions but it was hard to understand the creatures without deep knowledge of subject matter, or experience in designing organisms, and nothing useful came out.
3. After Rayyan joined the team, we refocused on more familiar creatures after we learned that scientists don't know much about deep-sea creatures either. We also made the decision to stick more closely to real-life organisms rather than invent our own.
4. We decided to go with the barnacles and zooplanktons because they are well-studied and would be realistic to implement.

materials design

1. Mechanical parts like MIT's robot anemone.
2. Fiber Optics.
3. Wire meshes like Ruth Asawa's.
4. Weaved / braided thread. Different styles of crochet stitch (sorry these are huge): Rayyan's stitches photo from web
5. We decided to go for a combination of all of the above, with mechanical parts and fiber optics for the barnacle, and wire & thread meshes for the zooplankton.
6. We considered including light projections for having an extra "background organism" but don't think that will be needed or realistic.