Difference between revisions of "Team:Exeter/Engagement"
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in the iGEM UK Meet-up 2017 hosted by the Westminster, UCL and Warwick iGEM teams.</h4></p> | in the iGEM UK Meet-up 2017 hosted by the Westminster, UCL and Warwick iGEM teams.</h4></p> | ||
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<p><h4>It was a great opportunity to meet and discuss the progress of our respective projects with other UK teams. The Friday, organised by | <p><h4>It was a great opportunity to meet and discuss the progress of our respective projects with other UK teams. The Friday, organised by | ||
Revision as of 10:48, 19 September 2017
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Public Engagement
App
We wanted to convey the principles of our project to the general public in a fun, visual and interactive way. Given that a high proportion of our team members have programming experience, we decided that the most natural and time efficient way of implementing this would be in the form of an app. The app is a game where the player experiences life as one of our modified bacteria; collecting ions from the water in order to gain points. If you are interested in playing this game for yourself, it can be found on the Play Store from this link: The Best App Ever
Purpose
The primary purpose of this app is to aid in explaining and visualising our project. In addition to this, the app also serves to educate and inspire people on the topic of synthetic biology. This is achieved through the use of “fun facts” which pop up on the screen whenever the player starts the game.
Evolution and Feedback
The app has changed significantly since it started development, being influenced heavily by feedback from within the team, academics outside the team, and members of the general public. Initially the app was intended simply as a device for increasing awareness and understanding of our project, but after some discussion it became apparent that it could be a good opportunity to promote synthetic biology in general. In response to this, an interesting biology or genetics fact pops up every time the game is played. In this way the player is constantly exposed to synthetic biology in easily digestible chunks which may inspire them to study the area further. In the early stages of development the app was reasonably confusing to play for the first time and left some ambiguities about the point of our project. An easy way to fix this was with the introduction of an interactive tutorial. Now it is much more accessible to new players and is far more meaningful in explaining our project. Some people who had been playing the game since its initial release on the store eventually came to find the game too easy. As such, we decided to add a game mechanic whereby the player not only had to catch ions out of the water, but also had to catch nutrient molecules in order to avoid starvation. This simple tweak made the game much harder and more intense, keeping experienced players interested.
Open Day
One of the best opportunities for feedback we had was during the University of Exeter open day on September 2nd. As part of the public outreach for this project, 3 team members represented iGEM at the open day. It was not only a great chance to talk to prospective students and their families about the opportunities offered by the university, but also to talk about our project and intentions. Primed in the teaching lab with a few demonstrations of our filtration system we received lots questions, feedback and encouragement. Firstly we explained a bit about the iGEM competition as many of the people approaching us were unfamiliar with it. We then proceeded to explain the project and the inspiration behind it. After answering their questions we asked them if they were willing to try our app. Intrigued, everyone one asked said yes. The feedback we recieved was very consistent, with the general consensus being that it positively helped to visualise our project and that it was very enjoyable; with many people commenting on the cute concept and good music. However, we also took on board some constructive criticism at the same time. The graphics seemed quite underwhelming, there were a handful of technical difficulties and – partially due to the nutrient mechanic mentioned previously- the game was quite difficult to play for beginners. With this feedback in mind, we made a concentrated effort to reflect and act on the improvements they suggested. Firstly we consulted an illustrator and commissioned some new graphics to improve the look of the game. The technical difficulties were fixed and the game was split into two separate modes. The starvation mechanic mentioned earlier was moved into what became the hard mode, while it was removed in the normal mode. This allowed for the game to not only be easily accessible, but also continue to challenge more experienced players.
Results
The final form of this app is a simple idea which has been executed well. An interesting and enjoyable game which serves the purpose of educating and engaging with the public. Friends compete to beat each other’s scores, playing over and over and picking up more fun facts along the way. In this way the app has succeeded its purpose of bringing the core principles of our project, and those of synthetic biology, to the people in an easily digestible format. At time of writing, this game is an international success- with 14% of the players registered in continental Europe.
Westminster
On 17th August four of our team members (Karolina, Rachel, Sean and Laura) made the trip to London to participate in the iGEM UK Meet-up 2017 hosted by the Westminster, UCL and Warwick iGEM teams.
It was a great opportunity to meet and discuss the progress of our respective projects with other UK teams. The Friday, organised by Westminster University, consisted of two lectures. The first covered the topics of Orthogonality, Risk, Bio-containment whilst the second was based on Bacterial Micro-Compartments. The lectures were then followed by poster presentation in the afternoon.
UCL organised a series of Synthetic Biology debates for Saturday morning, the debating topics included: Should Biology and AI technology be merged ? And should humans have the right to create synthetic life on other planets?
After lunch we departed for the Shard, as organised by Warwick, to give our presentations. When creating our presentation we had decided early on to be very up-front about the progression of our project and in-particular highlight any problems we were still yet to solve. By taking this approach we received lots of constructive comments and suggestions about possible solutions and difficulties which we had not yet identified.
