The Tiny Biosphere

Tiny Biosphere (side)As a little biology experiment, I picked random things from the forest behind the house and put them into two small plastic aquariums and sealed everything airtight with silicone. I paced this biosphere on the window and installed a RaspberryPi with PiCam NoIR above it. This was in late March and ever since (with a few brief pauses doe to lack of space on the sd card) the Raspberry took a photo from above every 15 minutes.

Using mencoder and handbrake I compiled a time-lapse video of the past months. It is amazing how alive these plants are and how long the balance in this isolated environment remains stable. (Don’t be fooled by the brownish appearance, this is just due to the colour shift of the infra red camera. The plants are still nearly as green as in the picture above.)