Human Practices
Synbio is just a S-Din away!
SYSU-Software 2017
Overview
During our project “S-Din”, we brainstormed many aspects concerning our project and took them into practices to confirm or to overturn our hypothesis. Then we tried to integrate them into our final project in order to improve the project functions and user experience.
At the beginning of our project, in order to get answers to questions about user needs, safety, software regulations and legal issues, we conducted numerous interviews with professionals working in related fields. They gave us useful and significant suggestions (Silver page). We have considered all comments from professionals and integrated them into our design of S-Din (Gold Integrated page). We conducted further user interviews and user needs analysis, promoted S-Din and synthetic biology to the public (Public Engagement page).
Please see our human practices highlights during the entire product development on our Integrated Human Practices page.
iGEM is not only a competition standing at the front of synthetic biology, but also a good chance and a platform to introduce synthetic biology to the public. Further, we should never “work behind closed doors” — though non-technical individuals may lack knowledge about synbio, they might provide us with many sparkling ideas and inspirations on our projects -- That's also S-Din's goal. More importantly, if our project is hardly understandable to the general public, then it cannot be a successful one. If we can establish a bi-directional communication with the public, we can get more feedback on our project and, based on the feedback, we can make our project more accessible not only to the scientists but also to the public.
Biology Festival: introduction synthetic biology to public
Collaborated with SYSU_CHINA iGEM team, we held a parade in the campus to introduce synthetic biology to the public. Our audiences included students of life sciences and many other majors, teachers of different backgrounds, and residents in the campus who are neither students nor teachers. Our parade includes 2 parts: Design a circuit; Project sharing.
As for the “Design a Circuit” part, we designed a funny game. The participants were allowed to design gene circuit based on the genetic parts provided by us for specific purpose. At first, we thought this game would be very easy. All they need to do is just put the genetic parts in the right orders to complete a circuit. The situation, however, is quite different from what we expected. We explained to them what the promoter is, but it was so hard for them to understand, not to mention completing a circuit. Since most of the students lacked related knowledge, few students attended this game. And those who attended this game required a lot of hints to finish the circuit.
In terms of the “Project Sharing” part, we presented the project of 2015, CORE. We demonstrated the function of our software. They also gave us some suggestions.
"Although I can't understand more about synthetic biology, I still feel very interested in your work and ideas." To our surprise, a student told us when the Biology Festival ended.
Figure 20.Many people are attracted by our parade in Biology Festival.
Figure 21.Group photo with SYSU-CHINA.
"Bio-Lab Rescue": game promotion
In many people's eyes, synthetic biology is mysterious and hard to understand. We hope to change this situation. We think synthetic biology is also funny and easy to get close to ordinary people — if we integrate the principle of synbio into online games.
In the summer, our team designed and developed a game "Bio-Lab Rescue". We hope to spread synthetic biology in a funny way. And we promoted the game around our university, and posted its URL on social medias.
Figure 22.Bio-Lab Rescue Game
Obviously many students were attracted by the game. They were very excited and gave much advice to us about improving the game experience. When we asked the players if they realized the topic we wanted to tell them, a player said yes and described what he learned from our game, which encouraged us a lot. However, he is the minority who can understand the game. We should think more about the combination of knowledge and entertainment, and how to spread synthetic biology.
Mini lectures for freshmen & high school students
We held several mini lectures for freshmen and high school students. In these lectures, we introduced our project this year -- S-Din, as well as principles of synthetic biology. We received their remarks to our project. From communication with them, we found some previous defect of S-Din, and their views help us think more about the project and improve it.
Figure 23.A mini lecture about iGEM projects for students of Guangzhou No. 2 Middle School.
"Synbio Summit" with people from different fields
What would happen if people from different fields get together to talk about synthetic biology? We decided to have a try -- to hold "Synbio Summit".
We invited guests majoring in sociology, computer science, environmental science, law and so on. At the beginnning of the summit, we introduced the basic concepts of synthetic biology, and express our previous thinking about what synbio will affect other fields. Participants were the first time to learn about synthetic biology, but they gave their opinions to us, including phrase, puzzles and worries after they realized what synbio may do with everyone's life.
For 1.5 hours, we talked about lots of topics around synthetic biology, including safety, societal effects, moral ethics and so on. We realized that we were not only the "teacher" in the field of synthetic biology, but also a humble student, for every field could teach us useful lessons.
Through communication, you'll know how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work.
Figure 24: Participants are discussing in "Synbio Summit".
Figure 25: Synbio Summit.
