Team:RHS-Calgary/Notebook
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Notebook
team progress journal
The story of GlucoLitter began back in 2019...
Thursday August 29, 2019:
-Finalized our team members
-Took at a Synthetic Biology guide book
September 18th, 2019:
-Created a project proposal outline
-Created a plan about our construct
September 27th, 2019:
-First wet lab experiment!
-Created an initial draft of our wiki
October 4th, 2019:
-Official Team organization
Human Practices:
-Amelia, Lane, Julia
Admin:
-Yali, Aashish
Business:
-Tony
-Aadesh
-Dayne
Wet Lab:
-YJ
-Emma D
-Rozina
-Noah A
Dry Lab:
-Waseem
-Tristalyn
-Arjun
-Noah J
Indeed, our project began in the early september of 2019. Since then, our team has been completely altered. All of the previous members have now graduated, and the torch of RHS-Calgary has been passed to a group of 8 new highschoolers.
In fact… back in 2019, our project was going to be research on the application of enzymes in eliminating nicotine addiction.
Fast forward to February 4, 2020…
We went back to the drawing board.
Some of our new ideas included an allergy detection system, crude oil removal, targeting contamination and the smells of protein shaker bottles, Effluent waste contamination in drinking water, and finally… feline diabetes.
February 12, 2020 - we began looking at the pros and cons of each project idea and what our team could contribute to the iGEM community
February to March, 2020 - investigating the iGEM requirements, determining funding goals, and brainstorming fundraising ideas
March 13th, 2020…
We started discussing other products that were currently available in the market and why ours was unique
The COVID-19 pandemic begins to shake the world. Our field trip to visit the university of lethbridge is cancelled.
During the time where we didn’t have access to the lab, we choose to focus on creating our wiki and establishing plans to do so
Fast forward to September, 2020…
Meet our New Member, Sophia Vig-Benko.
Unfortunately, many of our logs were lost in the transition between old members and new. We slowly began to lose the old members of our team and then joined our new members: Aarushi Bhargava, Tanisha Mattapalli, Kaylin Kritzler, Madison Kritzler, Diya Sharma, and Maya Jina.
We did, however, manage to have access to some of the interviews our old team members had done
Feb 3, 2021
Our Dry lab team began to work on an outline for the wiki and got feedback from all the other groups as to what information we would need for the wiki
Feb 5, 2021
An exciting time in any project… choosing a name
Here are our options:
Pissy Cat
GLOAT
Sprinkle and Tinkle
Glucolitter
Feline DIs
Sweet Pee
Pawtect
February 10, 2021
Weekly Meeting!
Created our very first iteration of the logo
February 26, 2021
HP begins working on storyboarding and scripting a promotional video for crowdfunding
Had a meeting with Sarah and Mr. Emond for feedback/mentoring
March 12, 2021
Tech Futures Challenge tomorrow!
We discussed the answers to some of the questions that we were expecting the judges to ask
Prepared for a question and answer session
Finalized Color scheme and logo
Mar 13, 2021
Exciting news… “WE GOT RUNNER UP FOR OUR CATEGORY!! This means that we won $1500! Great job to everyone who attended the pitch, worked on the promotional video, and participated in the Q & A session! We should all be super proud of ourselves and use this accomplishment as motivation to further develop our project and continue with the hard work!”
Mar 15, 2021
Interview with Mr. John Whitbread who provided us with some essential information for our project
Mar 31, 2021
Dry Lab decided to use nicepage in order to create the wiki
Got some advice from computer science teacher at our school
Apr 17, 2021
Mindfuel Lectures!
We attended many of these and collected notes from these presentations
May 6, 2021
Meeting with Dr. Laura Keffer Wilkes!
May 12, 2021
Custom Presentation template created by Aarushi Bhargava for consistent branding
Had a feedback session/meeting with the team
May 2021
Preparation for Tech Futures Challenge
Created our script and delegated different sections to each of our team members to research
Q/A Documents
May 26, 2021
Tech futures video filming
Did some research on gox
May 29, 2021
“As most of you know, we competed in the second part of the MindFuel Tech Futures Challenge (Project Prototypes) today! The awards ceremony just happened, and I'm pleased to share some good news with the team. We won overall runner-up which includes a $2500 prize. Additionally, we won top start-up project - this means we've been invited to go to a 5-day entrepreneurial summer camp at the University of Calgary this upcoming summer! This will be a great opportunity for our team, and will also be something we can discuss during the iGEM competition in the fall. Great job to everyone who worked on the video these past couple of days. I'm proud of our team, and let's keep up the great work!”
Jun 18, 2021
Interview with Emily Chorwood:
“I contacted Ms. Emily Chorwood and asked her what level of glucose in cat urine her clinic finds concerning - a very important part of our project. When blood glucose exceeds 10 mmol/L it is excreted in the urine. Anything above this amount is concerning. Normal blood glucose ranges between 3.3-8.3 mmol/L depending on the source you use. For the ranking system her clinic uses the information below:
+/- : 2.8 mmol/L (trace amounts, not always concerning)
1+ : 5.5 mmol/L
2+ : 14 mmol/L
3+ : 28 mmol/L
4+ : >55 mmol/L
With the test strips that her clinic uses, the urine will change the colour of the strip and that will show what grade/amount of glucose is in the urine. Her clinic doesn’t measure exact values. For those that are hyperglycemic and have glycosuria, her clinic sometimes runs additional blood work such as a fructosamine to get the precise value of glucose in the blood and to help monitor diabetic patients, typically cats over dogs. I have also contacted Dr. Nicole Howard, but I have not received a response yet. Hope this helps!”
Jun 23, 2021
Working on the preliminary safety form
Researched what temperature conditions our enzyme could survive in
Jul 15, 2021
Project Promo Storyboarding meeting
Script: Aarushi, Kaylin, Madison, Sophia
Filming and direction: Aarushi
Acting: everyone
Jul 16, 2021
Color change experiment
Jul 18, 2021
Project Promo Video Filming
Jul 22, 2021
Final Promo Video Draft Completed
Consent forms
Aug 25, 2021
Created a fundraising plan to gather money for the jamboree registration.
Got permission from our schools founder/principal
September 23, 2021
Created our iGEM team’s instagram account: renert.igem
Sep 25, 2021
Symposium with Dr. Laura Keffer-Wilkes and Lethbridge team
Oct 1, 2021
Finalized Safety form
Oct 3, 2021
cGEM competition - nationals!
Silver medal!
Creating “about the team member” posts on instagram
Oct 15, 2021
General Team Reorganization:
General team lead: Aarushi
Wet Lab team lead: Sophia
Wet Lab members: Sophia, Diya, Madison
Dry Lab team lead: Tanisha
Dry Lab team members: Tanisha, Maya, Aarushi
HP team lead: Ayana
HP team members: Ayana, Maya, Kaylin
October - present
Working on wiki and wiki requirements
Creating/planning out the video
Writing all of the content for the wiki
Gathering information about interviews and summarizing them
Reflecting on our teams’ achievements so far and thinking about steps we can take to take our project to the next level