EMERALD
Emerald is a decor object with an automated system to grow and harvest spirulina algae at home. It’s an entry to simple and elegant home growing of superfoods.
With a taxing issue of sustainable food production and very slow exploration of better alternatives, we wanted to introduce people to growing the nutritious spirulina algae using Emerald. Spirulina has been around for millennia, and is an excellent source of protein and vitamins, which is best consumed fresh, just like almost any other fruit or vegetable. Furthermore, spirulina purifies air and absorbs CO2, which is great news for the environment around it.
However, due to the complexity of growth and need for supervision there are few individuals growing fresh spirulina, and even those who try often fail to perfect it. This is where Emerald comes in and uses temperature, aeration and light control to deliver fresh spirulina at maximum growth rates without supervision. The design and technical components were carefully researched to deliver a product that can seamlessly fit into an urban house or an apartment, making it an elegant decor object rather than a chore. This project was presented at IDM Showcase 2019.
The electronics and control were developed using Arduino. For more information on the process see ITP blog.
