Gold and integrated

We made a series of survey to observe the users willingness, to see whether they meet the need of consumers.
We sought for critiques frequently, kept modifying our product to so that user can use them better

Survey

1. Online product form survey and PMR survey:

In order to know the willingness of using our product in Taiwan and foreign regions, we conducted a online product form questionnaire survey and PMR (Potential Market Research). Next, we went on the streets and asked random people for their thoughts about our project in order to actually learn customers needs.
Total samples:
Taiwan: 187 persons
Foreign: 70 person
The survey results are as follows:

Taiwan

Foreign

Summary

From the graphs above, we can see that children from 7-12 years old will have a school dentist to check their oral condition regularly. By knowing so, we still asked primary school staffs and 36 parents for their willingness of purchasing. It turned out that nine schools and 93% of the parents were willing to use this product.
However, when we asked the same question to the parents outside the school. Most of them considered our product unnecessary and regularly school check is enough. The following will explain the reasons why parents don’t purchase Carindex for their children.
For children at about 16 years old, they would prefer going to dentist on their own. So parents don’t need to buy the products.
As for 19 years old children, many of them go to other city’s university, have their own jobs, etc. So parents don’t need to buy the products for them.
We found that approximately 73% of people don’t want to use this product, because they think going to dentist is enough, and the product is too expensive.
On the other hand, foreign people have higher willingness to use this product at home, because going to dentist would cost more, compared to this product price.

Communicate with public

Product pamphlet

In order to let the public understand our product in an easy way, we released pamphlets in order to do so. In the pamphlet, we briefly introduced how our product can be used, the technology that is applied and also let them know that Carindex is a genetic engineered product. Then we introduce the kill switch in our gene circuit design to let them know the concept of biosafety, at the same time, promoting the safety of our product.

Public booth activity

In order to enable our product to actually reach the public, we communicate closely with the public and asked them for feedbacks. From these feedbacks, we modified our product so that it can be more intimate to social needs. We also cooperated with a kumquat farm which is a famous tourist attraction from Taiwan Chiayi for holding a booth. In the crowd booth, we showed our prototype and the product pamphlet to the public, introduced our project including knowledge regrading dental health care, the function of our product and the follow-up benefits of it. Many parents and children showed a great interest in Carindex after the introduction. We had received a lot of feedbacks from the public, and grasp a better understanding to the cavity problem that they had. These precious feedbacks helped us to improve the Carindex and made it in line with the user needs!

Education engagement

1. Biology Experiment:

To let students learn more about what we are doing, we designed a series of fun and easy DNA purification experiment for them. After the activities, we still remembered that many of them were so excited at the DNA that they purified. They said that they enjoyed it a lot and think that such activities are very awesome, hoping to have more opportunities to participate the same kind of things in the future.

2. Synthetic Biology Camp:

We set up plans to promote synthetic biology right after the summer started. We went to universities and senior high schools, introduced iGEM and synthetic biology and our project to the students so that they can understand the biotechnology as well as the various aspects of the impact from it. Many students had concerns about genetic engineered products and the related issues. After knowing what we were doing, they asked us what if the genetic engineered bacteria we made broke out the device, how are we going to deal with it. We told them about the kill switch we designed, ease their concern; at the same time, bring the security concept of biotechnology to them. According to after-class feedback, before the class, most of the students had have the same concern about genetic engineered product. However, after class, most of them grasped a correct and better understanding of synthetic biology, genetic modification, and it security. This eased their concern and make them want to do the same thing in future.

Professional engagement

3. Dentist Collaboration:

We visited a number of Taiwan Chiayi local dental clinic: 百利、沃爾、邱. From there, we understood the actual needs of the patient from the perspective of dentists and the patient actual oral cavity situation. We also had a better understanding of common habits of patients. The information helped us move one more step closer the public. Afterward, we collaborated with them, asking them to help the team define our product internal data. We used the standard dental caries level of ICDAS (International Caries Detection and Assessment System) organization, which is recommend by dentists.

Primary school collaboration

After contacting with the public, we found out that there are chances that parents might be willing to buy this product for their children. So we visited primary school in Chiayi, and asked that whether they want to cooperate with us by using this device at school but we found out that the school would ask the dentist examine the Taiwanese young children every three months. If one's oral condition was not healthy, the dentist would ask one to see the dentist again after school. However, the process where the dentist checked the children oral condition was often too long, causing many inconvenience. Therefore, the school said that if the device improved it accuracy, they would like do the cooperation.

Integrated

After having contact with many people, elementary school students and public booth, they showed interests in our product and expected us to continue developing it. They believed that Carindex would be a very good product in the future after we improved it. The suggestions from public showed like the follow.

Some people they won’t use the product because of no demands, but people who are interested in our product said they are unwilling to use this product as well, the reasons are that it is too complicated to use or it cost too much. On the other hand, nurses who work for elementary schools told us that our end user are students, maybe we can make our product more easily to use. As receiving those advice, we had made the following improvements to Carindex.

1. Appearance Improvement:

When we managed to cooperate with the local elementary schools, they suggested that we can design the device more lovely so that it would attract young children and increase their willingness of using.

2. Consumptive Materials Improvement:

After we communicate the public, we got critique that the device manipulation is too complicate. They hope that it could be installed like an ink clip of printer. Therefore, we modified the consumptive materials design. Originally, three slides of consumptive materials would have to be loaded respectively, one after one. We simplified this process by building a holder to integrate 3 slides together. Now that our customers will only have to load 1 consumptive materials complex.

3. Material Changing:

“It’s too expensive”, said most of the public we interviewed. Hence, we changed the materials from iron to acrylic material to reduce the cost of the product.

4. Extra Germination Space:

When we visited the local primary schools, the health center staffs provided some advice on our product. Since the germination process of the bacteria on the consumptive materials were going to take a lot of time and there are about 30 students using it at the same time, the efficiency would be a concern. After hearing this, we enlarged Carindex, created an extra space to germinate 8 to 9 consumptive materials beforehand. With this improvement, the school were very interested in purchasing 3 Carindex. So we went with a plan that maybe each class can use Carindex in turns.