Almost there!

Along with the concept change, the form of the structure changed as well. Instead of building a wall of all equal containers buy hand, we decided that we have more money than time, so we started looking into buying containers. So, we actually decided that we were going to use iv bags for containers instead of making the boxes. The iv bags were perfect because they were already sterile, water tight, and they allowed for tubing to be easily connected to each bag. So the form changed around the iv bag idea. We wanted to protect the algae from getting over agitated by humans hitting it directly, so we wanted to build an acrylic structure to protect it. The form was designed by the architects, and it was meant to look alien like and also have a wave type form. The original design was done so that the bags would be hung off of metal frame work (think like a checker board type look with steel piping) and the acrylic would go around the bags. The bags would then be connected by tubing that would allow air and the algae to travel to and from each bag. The tubing would be rapped around the structure and go in and out, making the structure kind of like an organ with the tubing being veins. A computer image of this is shown below, my teammate David made this.

However, this idea had many projects in one, so we decided to just focus on the algae and we redid the structure. We kept the same acrylic pattern and structure (with algae bags still in the middle of the acrylic) but we had the pieces hang just from the top of a steel pole so that they would swing freely in and out of the plane of the structure. The structure itself is now hanging from a steel pole which is supported by an I beam in the ceiling. Metal cable will travel through the steel pole then go through a bottom steel pole then will be bolted to the floor for support. Then it was decided that, in order to make the algae glow do to human agitation, a motor would be placed below each acrylic piece with a acrylic "finger" so that when the motor was activated the finger would spin and hit the acrylic pieces causing it to swing in and out of the project plane. This will cause the algae to agitate and glow. The motors will be connected by infrared censors that will turn on the motors anytime a person walks by. The motors will work so that the acyclic pieces will be hit one by one and will create a wave within the structure. Below is another computer image created by David that was for our final structure.