The Hunger Games wouldn’t be as majestic and thrilling if it weren’t for the games being held in Panem, a futuristic city where the wealthiest and wisest of all beings control the rest of the districts and shape the lives of the masses. So how do a bunch of marine biologists relate to all of this? Well, since we are superior beings, we have the control over our Panem, the wet lab.
Just like the movie, districts are our holding tanks and high speed trains are water flows cascading towards the hottest district, where all our competitors await for their chance to be the next Katniss. Arduino, a kind of motherboard to which it’s possible to attach a series of different sensors and switches was used to regulate seawater temperature in our world of two districts: the hot and the cold districts.
Our main goal was controlling the temperature in the tanks where our shrimp were kept overnight. This was sort of complex as we needed to have warm baths of running seawater at constant temperatures. Temperature variations had to be minimal in order to keep our competitors at a level they can stand without overheating or losing their temper prior to battle for food against their fellows. Watch below a snippet of our very sophisticated waterproof Arduino setup, used to control temperature in our tributes’ chambers..
Just like the movie, districts are our holding tanks and high speed trains are water flows cascading towards the hottest district, where all our competitors await for their chance to be the next Katniss. Arduino, a kind of motherboard to which it’s possible to attach a series of different sensors and switches was used to regulate seawater temperature in our world of two districts: the hot and the cold districts.
Our main goal was controlling the temperature in the tanks where our shrimp were kept overnight. This was sort of complex as we needed to have warm baths of running seawater at constant temperatures. Temperature variations had to be minimal in order to keep our competitors at a level they can stand without overheating or losing their temper prior to battle for food against their fellows. Watch below a snippet of our very sophisticated waterproof Arduino setup, used to control temperature in our tributes’ chambers..
After having built their chambers, we headed onto the arenas themselves. Our team faced the challenge of designing arenas for our tributes where they could fight for food and dodge terrifying living obstacles (hungry crabs) at the same time. Arenas were thought out so our Katniss-to-be crustaceans could use their space for both sheltering, moving around and competing for food. Their food was placed in the middle of the feeding zone, closest to the 10x bigger caged crab, which was kept separate on one end of the tank and whose claws were long enough to scratch the shrimp’s back. Watch below the construction of our arenas, which, by the way, were built using recyclable materials, since, as superior beings, we also care about our planet.
In a nutshell, it took us two days to design, build and prepare the Arduino regulator, our tributes’ chambers and the arenas. Getting ready to host the games in our wet Panem has been a joyful and yet challenging task, which has made us grow stronger as a team and taught us that holding games has more to it than we thought.
Guess what will be our next move? To the Arenas and let’s have some action!
May the odds of all crustaceans be ever in their favor!!
Written by: Leonardo Bertini.
Edited by Katelin Morrison and Zara Guifarro
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