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From 2012.igem.org

Contents 1 Discovery festival report 1.1 Lab Experience 1.2 Idea box 1.3 The Poster Game 1.4 Communication Science 2 Conclusion

Discovery festival report

In a collaborative national effort with the iGEM teams of Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Groningen, we organised an interactive lab tour and various other activities on the Discovery Festival. We did this simultaneously on the three locations of the festival: Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Rotterdam. Although the preparations were done cooperatively, we split up the teams on the night itself. Our team was responsible for the location of Rotterdam.

The Rotterdam version of the Discovery festival as well as those in the other two cities were a great success! Over 1200 people visited the location in Rotterdam, and over 4000 attended the three festivals combined (based on presale numbers). With happy, interested people from all kinds of backgrounds mixed together, the general atmosphere on the festival as well as in our improvised lab was really great!

Lab Experience

We prepared a provisional laboratory where small groups of people (3-6) could manually go through a simulation of synthetic biology. In the first step they ‘ordered DNA online’, and through various subsequent steps they learned to use devices like an actual centrifuge, vortex and pipettes, and a make-shift electroporator. In the last step, they experienced the outcome of their endeavours by seeing or smelling the phenotype that they selected for in step one.

Soon after the festival doors opened at 8 p.m., the first group of visitors entered our lab. We took them along on their own synbio trip. Although somewhat uneasy at first, we soon got a hang of how to engage people, spark their interest and make them aware of what they were doing. Throughout the evening, our lab has not lacked attention. Our team was giving tours constantly and it was not unusual for visitors to stand in line because our entire team was occupied.

Idea box

Over the course of the evening many people left video messages in the idea box, and they all seemed to have a great time while doing it. Unfortunately, we haven’t analyzed the results just yet.

The Poster Game

Unfortunately, the overwhelming attention we got for the lab tour meant that we had no time (or need) to walk around with posters and try to spark peoples interest with them. Because of this, the whole poster game never worked out as planned. However, we did hang A0 sized versions of our posters (attached below, partly in Dutch) on the wall outside our improvised laboratory. Throughout the night, they attracted a lot of attention from the crowd. Apparently, the concepts of synthetic biology and its use as a solution to the world’s problems appeal to a wide audience. We were very happy to observe this.

Communication Science

Unfortunately, it will take Paulien a lot longer to analyze all the data we provided her with and write a solid report about it than we had time to wait. However, she did provide us with a first impression. She also said she had a great time observing us and she is very happy with the resulting data.

Conclusion

The attention and enthusiasm that we encountered amongst the public exceeded all expectations. Although this overwhelming attention somewhat hindered our ambition to address the festival visitors outside our own lab, it also showed that this wasn’t really required. Overall, we regard our participation in this festival as a great success! What’s more: The same is true for the teams that visited the other festivals!

Attached below are the ‘synthetic biology posters’ that we made. To appeal to a wide audience, we tried to make them as diverse as possible in both style, level of detail and language.