Precedents: 

We questioned whether our biome would be an entirely closed-loop system or would adapt to the martian characteristics and use its resources at least partially (class constraints revealed these would be natural sunlight and extraction of water). Another idea we have been incorporating into our project is that of diversity, and recreating the natural life-cycle of ecosystems. 

     

We researched things like what plant diversity looked like, what pairs of plants grew well together, life-cycle alignments, and ultimately, searched for symbiotic relationships between plants and other organisms that exist naturally or could develop.

  

Excited with the idea of adding oyster mushrooms, moss, water bears, or other organisms into our biome, we were particularly interested in lichen, the hybrid of fungi and algae, and the potential exchange of resources the relationship could provide for our houseplant.

 

Some technologies we were interested in included using Arduino for a pump watering system, raspberry pi infrared camera to analyse plant’s photosynthesis activity, and placement of sensors in order to control the inputs and output of each of our plant layers.