My plan is to work with Pyrocystis Fusiformis, also know as Bioluminescent Algae to develop some sort of interactive media. In order to be able to have concrete ideas on which kinds of projects can be developed, I first need to learn how to grow and take care of them.
At first, I received a sample of algae from Antje Danz's stash. For that, we prepared a medium using the recipe provided by Frederic Blais-Belanger. At first, the algae were glowing very faintly in the dark, probably because they were not being given the proper care, so I also took on a caring method similar to Frederic's in order to grow them properly.
First, I put the medium with the algae inside an empty bottle I had at home.
Then, I built a simple system with a small cardboard box and a lightbulb that can be switched on and off.
They have been subject to a cycle of 12h light - 12h darkness. I still did not have the knowledge necessary to build a timer, so the activation and deactivation of the switch had to be done by hand, meaning that the cycle has had a few irregularities.