iGEM Warwick had the opportunity to be involved in iGEM McMaster’s song project, which involved our team members submitting audio of them singing synthetic biology lyrics. This was part of a project to create a song meant to teach younger students in an unconventional manner about biology, synthetic biology and iGEM.
A photo of the music video for the song, posted on the McMaster social media
June 2021
iGEM KCL invited us to attend a virtual meetup with a range of UK and Ireland iGEM teams in June 2021. This was an informal meetup where we were able to meet a range of different teams and discuss more about our project ideas and plans. We presented a short 3 minute video on what our project will be to the teams in our introduction then attended breakout rooms with different teams to work together to help each other find solutions to problems arising and to share the work we have done so far.
A photo of the UK and Ireland meetup organised by KCL
July 2021
iGEM Warwick participated in the iGEM Düsseldorf postcard project in July 2021. We created a postcard to be sent to different iGEM teams, which contains information about our project. This was a fantastic opportunity to share our project idea with a range of iGEM teams in a simple but creative manner.
While creating our collaborative outreach Magazine, iGEM Mingdao team submitted their project information for it to be added to our booklet. From reading about their project, we saw similarities with ours, such as how we are both creating detection kits for dangerous bacteria. Therefore, iGEM Warwick wanted to learn more about their project, in particular their human practices and wet lab work. iGEM Warwick planned a virtual meeting with the team in August 2021 where we introduced our projects, shared a video introducing our project as well discussed the wet lab and human practices work we had done. We discussed potential problems and solutions, such as the idea of working with bacteriophages and who to contact for human practices. The meetup was extremely informative and a fantastic way to get to know another team working on a similar project.
A photo of the meetup with the iGEM Mingdao team
iGEM Marseille invited us to participate in their Social Media emoji game. The game involved us submitting an emoji which provided a clue to what our project is in order for other teams to guess. We also submitted an explanation of our emoji choice and project for other iGEM teams participating in the project for them to have access to.
The emoji we designed for the competition
August 2021
In August 2021 iGEM Warwick submitted in a team picture and project description to iGEM Korea_HS. The aim of this collaboration was to provide information on our team for iGEM Korea_HS to create a google drive, containing our information and other teams’ information. This is a space where any iGEM teams can easily access information on our project and get in touch with us if they are interested in working with us.
A photo of (most) of our team in our weekly check-in meetings
15th of August 2021
On the 15th August iGEM Warwick attended the Wiki Workshop an event part of the Cyanobacteria Symposium which we were invited to by iGEM Stonybrook. It was a great opportunity to hear how to improve our wiki, what to include and was a space to share and gain knowledge from a range of iGEM team members.
A photo of some of the team in the wiki workship seminar
iGEM CCU_Taiwan and NCKU_Tainan invited iGEM Warwick to participate in the iASK symposium event they hosted. It was an opportunity for our team members to ask questions to members of the judging panel committee regarding the judging form. We also gained some great advice and wisdom from the 2019 Grand Prize winner NCKU_Tainan.
A photo of some of the team at the symposium
27th of August 2021
On the 27th August iGEM Manchester organised a “code-a-thon”, where teams programmed for 24 consecutive hours in order to make progress on their wikis. There were check-in meetings every three hours, so we could have a chat and discuss what we had achieved. It was a wonderful experience, with strong camaraderie amongst the teams, not least during meetings later into the night. Additionally, teams were able to help each other out with technical issues, for example asking if anyone knew how to debug or fix an issue they had been experiencing. Since two of our team members already have experience with web design, we were able to help other teams. Especially JavaScript was a hot topic, as this was a new experience for many of the more traditional iGEM team members with backgrounds in biology!
The sticker awarded for completing the Manchester code-a-thon
