We had a lot of fun with these three teams. The meet up is set in Hangzhou where two of the teams are located, and we spent our time together from July 26 to July 30. We arrived in Hangzhou at 2:00pm on July 26 and then went to a meeting with the representatives of the other three teams to plan the presentation and activities on July28 and July 30. The representatives came up with the idea of doing simple experiments in order to attract the kids. We spent some time at the meeting room thinking about the possible experiments we can do. We thought about different types of activity that can introduce our project and synthetic biology to the younger kids. However, we didn’t pass any of the plans due to feasibility problem or safety-related concerns.
On July 27, we visited the lab that ASTWS-China and Worldshaper-Nanjing are using. We went to see the facilities and were told about the functioning of the equipment there. Another meet up is held as well. We continued our discussion about the presentation and activities, and finally we decided doing science-related experiments would be fine as the condition in the museum wouldn’t allow the kids to sit down and wait. It’s also hard to decide the type of experiment regarding safety, short duration and equipment availability. On the other hand, we started our preparation on the PPT and graphs that are needed for demonstration.
On July 28, we went to Zhejing University where the lab of Worldshaper-XSHS is located. We visited their lab and the team leaders discussed about the usage of Bio Parts sent by the committee as ours seemed have already denatured due to preservation problem. Recently, there were a few technique-related problems in our experiment. The leader and members from experimental group discussed about the possible cause and showed us their colony of fungi， given that we had trouble developing colonies and there were too few of them in each trial. While we were trying to figure out the usage and possible solution for our Bio Parts-problem, we visited the lab of iGEM team at Zhejiang University. Our leader and Worldshaper-XSHS’s team leader talked to the team members of ZJU-China about the problem we had. At about 3 pm that afternoon, we gave a presentation to students and teachers from Yiling Highschool. ASTWS-China talked about synthetic biology, Wordshaper-XSHS talked about “What is iGEM”, Wordshaper-Nanjing and our team introduced our projects to the audiences. The short video made by Worldshaper-XSHS gave us an idea of making short videos teach others about the knowledge and technique we used in the project. (We had thought about making a video but it’s more like a propaganda.)
July 29 to the morning of July 30, the four teams sent their representatives to mathematics modeling class which was told by a professor from Zhejiang University. Other team members had to decide the experiment we are going to do, and the leader of Worldshaper-XSHS helped us bought the equipment we needed.
July 30, we held the activity in the China Zhe Jiang Science and Technology Museum. Short videos about iGEM and the teams’ projects were released. There were fun experiments that attracts kids and their parents. The team members went out to hand out the fans with texts that introduce our projects printed on them. There were parents that felt curious about the competition and our projects. The activity lasted until the museum closed. From this meet up, we learned a lot from our experiences and had a better idea on how to introduce synthetic biology as well as our projects to the public. We got some inspiration from other teams’ performances as well. We were really looking forward to another collaboration with other teams.
