Biomimicry Project
For this project, we were required to look to nature for inspiration for a design to better improve a certain aspect of the food industry. We looked at the several problems that need to be solved in the world and find a certain one to focus on in our final project. After we found an area to improve on we then found the various ways in which nature naturally solves problems and incorporated it into our final design image. This project was significant to me because I was appalled by all the statistical information on the problems the world faces with food such as how "one billion people are going hungry while waste 1/3 of the food we produce".
Design Question
How might we reduce the amount of fish and their diseases escaping into the local San Diego ecosystem from their respective fish farm pens?
- Before my group and I started on your project, we made a design question that would help shape how we would research a solution.
Project Overview
- For our final product we made a project overview which went over our design and project overall.
For a while now, the Port of San Diego has toyed with the idea of creating San Diego’s first Ocean Fish Farm off the coast of Point Loma. They hope to produce 11 million pounds of fish, and this could create a major dent in the effort to stop fishing endangered wild fish and develop a new form of aquaculture in the San Diego area. However, it also has a some major negative side effects. Fish Farming although helpful to fish populations, is very harmful to its local ecosystems. Fish Farms create a lot of waste, disease and pollution which harms the ecosystems that they are situated in. Farm fish can escape their enclosures and lead to breeding with other local fish that can weaken natural fish genetics. A massive commercial fish farm proposed near San Diego would be the largest in the United States would discharge the waste of 11 million pounds of fish directly into the ocean. Contributing to toxic algal blooms that are already cause environmental and economic harm in California.
We created a possible solution to this very conceivable problem. Introducing the Flow Fish Farm! Designed to contain fish while allowing water to flow freely through the porous enclosures and keep diseases from spreading out into the local ecosystem. Our design also finds a way to put the large amounts of fish waste to use as it is a natural fertilizer that can be used more efficiently other animal waste. Our designs structure is simple as it mimics that of a porous coral. The inside of the structure is lined twice with the use of a synthetic copy of mucus that we mimicked from the parrot fish which creates a mucus bubble to protect itself from disease and predators. Thus the synthetic mucus prevents the escape of diseases in our design; also, to the excess fish waste is funneled through a design that mimics the ridges of the Elf Shelter leaf. Overall, our design is significant because it would be very beneficial to improving an establishment that will overall help the food system and wildlife ecosystems.
- Below is my paper about Nature's Unifying Patterns. In this paper I discussed how patterns in nature tend to happen frequently, and I also discussed what patterns my partners and I were using in our project. For example how nature is responsive to its environment by adapting to dangers
Nature’s Unifying Patterns
For our project, my partners and I went through many project ideas to come up with our final product to contain the potential open water fish farm specifically being considered to be placed in Point Loma, San Diego. We took in consideration the two main environmental concerns for our local San Diego aquatic ecosystem: the potential fish waste, and the farm fish escaping into the local ecosystem. Our four main biomimicry inspirations was: Coral, the parrot fish’s bubble, the cell membrane, and the Elf Shelter Leaf. These four components were to contain disease from the farm fish and keep them contained within the structure, and collect fish waste. As we were configuring the project designs, my partners and I took into consideration the patterns in nature involved with our biomimicry inspirations.
For the problem with the excess fish waste, we decided to use the Elf Shelter Leaf to help funnel the fish waste that usually falls to the bottom of the ocean floor. The leaf’s ridges help capture rainwater in trees and funnel the water into the tree. This biomimicry inspiration best reflects how nature repeatedly optimizes rather than maximize. This means that due to the precious resources nature has access to, it optimizes the materials it needs. So with that information we can connect that with how instead of using a big flashy water capturing mechanism, the tree with the Shelter Leave used it’s energy and resources properly to create a leaf that would give it optime water, because it doesn’t need an extravagant method of capturing water.
Another example of nature’s unifying patterns is seen with the cell membrane. In our project, to make the structure of the fish farm stronger, we went with the idea to double the structure by making a structure that mimics the synthetic coral exterior, and also making a synthetic mucus layer within to contain diseases and viruses vast populations of farm fish create. Our two layers mimic the cell membrane because in the cell, the membrane keeps certain organelles inside; therefore, we mimicked that idea to just keep the farm fish in the structure to ensure they don’t escape into the local ecosystem. This specific biomimicry example, best follows the being responsive to the environment it inhibits. The cell membrane is very responsive to its environment because it controls which organelles can come in and out of the cell itself. For example, when the cell needs extra proteins it produces ATP to attach itself to the transport protein. The cell can control what can come in and out and uses the least amount of energy in order to do so. Therefore, the cell membrane shows that it is rightfully responsive to its microscopic environment and best fit to be used for our initial steps in creating our structure to keep fish in; but, also simultaneously allowing water to flow through without disease and viruses escaping into the local ecosystem.
To contain the diseases farm fish poison the local ecosystem with, we mimicked the parrot fish’s bubble to protect the local fish from disease. The bubble basically is made up of the parrot fish’s mucus to create a barrier against parasites. A fish such as the parrot fish needs all the protection it can get to protect itself from dangerous viruses and predators during the night while it regenerates. A unique feat such as that follows nature’s patterns by being resilient to disturbances in its environment. Basically, being resilient to an organism’s environment means that it is excellent in recovering from disturbances or changes in its environment from minor changes to disastrous ones. Another significant pattern the parrot fish’s bubble displays is by reusing and recycling its mucus bubble. Instead of taking from the environment around the parrot fish, it instead uses its own resources by using its own mucus. This is extremely significant due to the fact that the parrot fish could have chosen to use its surrounding resources rather than its own. Lastly, the parrot fish evolves to survive in such a harsh and unforgiving environment such as the open ocean. To re energize itself, as I’ve stated before, the mucus membrane protect the fish from harmful bacteria and predators during the night. This adaption ensures the survivability of the fish in an environment where predators are abundant; thus making a synthetic membrane a excellent candidate for protection from the bacteria the open ocean fish farm expose to local fish.
Overall there are numerous patterns that can be seen in nature, and we should be conscious of them to replicate these patterns in our own inventions and be conscious of our surroundings and local ecosystem. To make biomimicry designs such as ours you need to recognize and execute nature’s unifying patterns in your designs to ensure the reliability of your potential design may have when completed.
Project Reflection
The most significant learning experience I had during this project was that despite what seemed like at time impossible finding a solution to my group’s problem, it was eventually solved and it gave me inspiration to care more about the well being of the earth.
The work from this project I felt most proud of was probably thinking of the idea to collect the waste for our fish net. I was inspired to find a solution to the excess fish waste when I read an article about how compared to horse manure, fish manure didn’t need to sit and turn into fertilizer-it could be used right away. Right away I started drawing designs and finally settled on making a funnel with ridges from the Elf Shelter Leaf to capture the fish waste.
The main challenge I faced during this project was trying to make a design that mimicked nature. At first all I could think about was how to incorporate nature into my designs; I could not think of one idea that mimicked nature, not borrow it. Eventually my group and I brainstormed many ideas to come up with the Flow Fish Farm, and writing up the project was a piece of cake from there on.
What stuck with me most with this project was how much waste humans make with food, and how many people in the world don’t have access to food such as here in America. This project really inspired me to be conscious of how my family deals with extra food, and also started talking to them about making a family compost bin.
The work from this project I felt most proud of was probably thinking of the idea to collect the waste for our fish net. I was inspired to find a solution to the excess fish waste when I read an article about how compared to horse manure, fish manure didn’t need to sit and turn into fertilizer-it could be used right away. Right away I started drawing designs and finally settled on making a funnel with ridges from the Elf Shelter Leaf to capture the fish waste.
The main challenge I faced during this project was trying to make a design that mimicked nature. At first all I could think about was how to incorporate nature into my designs; I could not think of one idea that mimicked nature, not borrow it. Eventually my group and I brainstormed many ideas to come up with the Flow Fish Farm, and writing up the project was a piece of cake from there on.
What stuck with me most with this project was how much waste humans make with food, and how many people in the world don’t have access to food such as here in America. This project really inspired me to be conscious of how my family deals with extra food, and also started talking to them about making a family compost bin.