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After last weeks training week we hope to finally begin construction. There are still a few hurdles: Our genetic circuits need our supervisor's approval and we might need to order some additional parts.
One of the human practice events we're most excited about is collaborating with the DIYbio community. We want to finalize the concept and find a space for it, as well as apply for funding. Hopefully we also have a much nicer and more complete wiki by the end of this...
Also, we will be creating our "project trailer" this week, which we'll use for a very exciting Kickstarter campaign...
Monday 18th June
Wiki Meeting - Today we had a meeting to assess the progress on wiki.
Tuesday 19th June
Meeting - Human Engagement. Martina, Yeping, Philipp and Bethan met with Hilary from the Public Engagement Unit regarding our application for the Beacon Bursary. It will support us to put on the DIYbio project so we are very appreciative of her help.
Training - Human Engagement - We arranged training with Steve Cross - Head of Public Engagement in UCL - to ask for advice about taking our project to a wider population. Outcome: It is much clearer that targeting the wider community involves tailoring how we present our project to particular groups.
Wednesday 20th June
Wet Lab Training - Today we proceeded to train other team members in restriction enzyme digest and transforming bacteria.
Modelling meeting – Talked through conceptual problems, outlined how the models should work, and made some decisions about how to proceed
London Hackspace Meeting – Philipp, Yeping, Leonard and Martina visited the Hackspace Base at Old Street to discuss our ideas for human practice. They also had the opportunity to try some of their equipment, including running a gel in their lab.
Thursday 21st June
Meeting - Organising Construction - Members of the Construction Crew have now reached a stage where they can provide a timetable for the construction of Biobricks. They have produced a Gantt Chart, which will assist in managing this part of the project over the summer
Meeting - Crowdfunder Campaign - Philipp, Leonard, Aurelija and Yeping have been brainstorming ideas for a Crowdfunder Campaign. A Crowdfunder Campaign involves designing a short, quirky video to capture peoples attention about out project. This can be posted on www.sponsume.com to recruit for funding from wider audiences - most notably the wider UCL. Outcome: Decided on a stop-motion style of video and produced a rough storyboard
Friday 22nd June
Wet Lab Training- We continued training our other team members where we performed gel electrophoresis of our enzyme digest products. We were also going to purify our plasmid DNA from our previously transformed cells but strangely after centrifuging there were no pellets.
Meeting - Crowdfunder Campaign - Philipp, Leonard, Aurelija, Rhiannon and Yeping discussed the style of the crowdfunder campaign. Outcome: Decided it would progress like the turning pages of a book and produced a more detailed storyboard
Meeting - Radio Show We are setting up a radio show where international iGEM teams will be interviewed along with key figures in Synbio. Meeting between Bethan and Bouran with staff at UCL radio studio to discuss equipment and how the show will be broadcasted.
Saturday & Sunday
Meeting - Crowdfunder: Carina met with Philipp to discuss how the fund-raising site would take form and how we wanted people to interact. Philipp suggested the idea of using google map’s interface from which we could plant our plastic islands onto from which members of the public interested in donating could do so by purchasing ‘plastic’ land. So taking the colour scheme of google-maps I started drawing our islands. The shape of these islands took on the form of discard plastic bottles; keeping with our plastic theme! Thus, Plastic Republic is born: http://plasticrepublic.org/
Reflection
We are feeling optimistic after this week – many of the plans for construction and characterisation have been finalised, and we have a provisional schedule of completion dates for our modules. We are especially pleased with the progress made in human practice. After the training, we have a much better idea of how to engage certain audiences, and we have met with several parties about fundraising for our events. Now we are all really keen to complete training and preparation, and move forward with our plans.
Success of the Week: Creating our Crowdfunder Video
Fail of the Week: The colony which we inoculated for training that produced no cells was due to the use of the wrong antibiotic. A mistake that certainly will not be repeated again!
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