Difference between revisions of "Team:Wellesley TheTech/Team/Notebooks"
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| − | + | 6/1/2015: Day 1 | |
Today was the first day and I feel so overwhelmed (in the best way) and excited to be introduced to all of these new CS softwares and applications of CS in education. We began with a lab orientation, and then split off into our teams to begin brainstorming and training. | Today was the first day and I feel so overwhelmed (in the best way) and excited to be introduced to all of these new CS softwares and applications of CS in education. We began with a lab orientation, and then split off into our teams to begin brainstorming and training. | ||
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The iGEM team (Rachel, Sam, and I) started by researching iGEM medal requirements and gaining a deeper understanding of the iGEM competition. We had already done some prior research about the iGEM competition and previous Wellesley iGEM teams’ projects, but getting familiar with iGEM requirements made me begin to more fully grasp the great effort and time that would be put into these projects- but also made me all the more excited to be pursuing them. | The iGEM team (Rachel, Sam, and I) started by researching iGEM medal requirements and gaining a deeper understanding of the iGEM competition. We had already done some prior research about the iGEM competition and previous Wellesley iGEM teams’ projects, but getting familiar with iGEM requirements made me begin to more fully grasp the great effort and time that would be put into these projects- but also made me all the more excited to be pursuing them. | ||
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| − | + | We downloaded the software that we would be using (Cornerstone SDK) and spent the rest of the day exploring the provided examples and examining the different ways we could interact with the Widgets. I feel very excited and optimistic about the upcoming work. | |
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| + | 6/2/2015: Day 2 | ||
| + | Today we began work on our own example application! We created our own basic “Hello World”-level app that featured rectangles, which upon tapping specific ones, would duplicate below where your finger touched the screen. We started playing around with the shapes, and changed the rectangles to circles. The signature for creating circles seemed to be very simple and similar to drawing rectangles, but by examining the different parameters that each method took in, we became introduced to new concepts such as Nimble Vector2fs. As of now, we are trying to restrict the Widgets to the screen and prevent them from accidentally being pushed offscreen and becoming inaccessible. | ||
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| + | 6/3/2015: Day 3 | ||
| + | After changing the Widget shapes to circles, we ultimately changed our main Widget shape to be an ellipse. This choice made us start to consider other ways that we can apply basic concepts of synthetic biology to our project, so we decided to have two forms of Widgets-- large white “E. Coli” and smaller, more colorful widgets that represent viruses. We hoped to display and share the concept of bacteria absorbing or “eating” a virus. Currently in our app, if a E.Coli and virus intersect, the E. Coli “eats” the virus and the virus appears within the E.Coli to represent its infection. When an infected E.Coli collides with a non-infected E.Coli, the second E.Coli displays the same virus to represent contamination. When you tap a virus, three new viruses are created to simulate the virus growing on its own. We are struggling with keeping the virus within the boundaries of the E.Coli parent widget, and working on inspecting the Widgets’ locations and reference points so that we can better understand how to work with them. | ||
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| + | 6/4/2015: Day 4 | ||
| + | Today was a very successful day! We added movement to the Widgets so that when left unattended, the E.Coli and viruses float about on their own. The use of markers has also been incorporated, so that tapping a marker to the screen creates a new Bacteria. In addition, we managed to set boundaries around the screen to prevent the Widgets from going out of frame. Another exciting new addition is that the E.Coli now individually grow in size and once they reach a certain size, divide into two separate E.Coli. If the original E.Coli was infected with a virus, the new E.Coli will also display its infection. This process is accurate and true to the natural E.Coli growth and division process. | ||
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| + | Our next step is hopefully to keep the Widgets from overlapping and to eventually make them bounce off of one another upon intersection. | ||
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| + | 6/5/2015: Day 5 | ||
| + | We have started programming specific actions for specific markers-- now, one marker creates a new Bacteria, one removes that specific Bacteria, and one displays the bacteria’s infection status with a simple attached textbox that states “Infected” or “Not infected”. We have also introduced ImageWidgets into our app so that we can have custom images deployed onto our app. We have only just started to realize the vast number of directions that this app/exhibit can go in and the many different concepts it can teach, and this textbox that will share the bacteria’s status is a great example of the different possibilities we can teach and display. For our next steps, we want to program the widgets to bounce off of another, and eventually try introducing video and text to the screen that can play and display independently. | ||
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| + | 6/8/2015: Day 6 | ||
| + | Today Natalie Kuldell stopped by the lab and led a few discussions about presenting and teaching synthetic biology as well as the complexities and controversies surrounding the topic. It was quite a wonderful experience-- I definitely admire a lot of the work Natalie has done- teaching and developing curriculum at multiple undergraduate institutes, founding BioBuilder Educational Foundation (a non-profit that teaches biology/synthetic biology topics online, making this knowledge widely available and accessible), working as a visiting scientist in labs… she clearly communicated her deep understanding of teaching and interacting with others and the greater implications and questions of synthetic biology. | ||
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| + | We began our day with a short presentation by Natalie where she defined the study of synthetic biology and, upon learning that most of the team-members had more of a computer science background than biology background, began introducing these biological concepts as forms of coding. She also explained the link between biology and engineering by passing out small educational kits comprised of mini-breadboards, wires, batteries, LED lights, and more where we could explore how biology functions to create its own “hardware”. She then gave us a brief but very interesting lecture on the actual science behind how genes are expressed. I understand that our exhibit will probably focus on the user being able to “make and tinker” than on the actual science, but it is still helpful for us to better understand what we may eventually represent and display. I loved hearing Natalie teach-- she is very present and energetic. | ||
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| + | We then went on to discuss some of the most famous synthetic biology experiments and previous iGEM submissions such as bacterial photography, E. chromi, Eau that Smell, Colorful World, etc. | ||
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| + | Throughout the day, Natalie kept giving tips of what to keep in mind when designing a museum exhibit- such as taking into account the convenience of recovering/restoring materials (both accessibility and in monetary value), considering the attention span of the museum-goers, understandability (e.g. would a facilitator or written instructions be needed?), and how concrete or abstract the concepts that we would eventually teach would be. Each point was definitely helpful, and something that I had not fully considered at that time. This has been true during this summer research program thus far, as well as through previous years of experience-- but the more that I learn, the more I realize how little I actually understand in the world. However, I only feel that much more energized and excited to fill in the gaps and pursue what I don’t know. Today was a very full day-- we learned a lot of hard biology, we chatted about how museum-goers would experience our product, we discussed how to bring up this sensitive topic… I feel optimistic and ready to move forward tomorrow and the rest of the summer! | ||
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| + | 6/9/2015: Day 7 | ||
| + | Today was an intense session of brainstorming. We spent the morning coming up with three separate, very different possible museum exhibit ideas and designs to show Romie and Anja during our Skype call at 2:30. Our current ideas are affectionately titled “BacMan”, “BacFarm”, and “Bac to Mars”, and I’m excited to pursue work on any of them! | ||
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| + | During the call, they were both very pleasant and seem very committed to cultivating a creative space where museum-goers can learn in novel ways, and I’m definitely excited to work closer with them over the next few months. We left the Skype call with the intention of beginning to pursue one of the ideas (probably the Mars exhibition, affectionately titled Bac to Mars) with the more specific technical goal of furthering our understanding of Cornerstone markers-- figuring out how to get the screen to recognize multiple and respond differently to a set. By then, we were pretty worn out from a day of such brainstorming and creative thinking, so we spent the last hour helping transcribe interviews gathering information for another project happening in the HCI lab. I’m looking forward to coming in tomorrow and tackling markers. | ||
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| + | 6/10/2015: Day 8 | ||
| + | We began the day with the goal of further exploring and understanding the Cornerstone Marker documentation. We were able to program our app to detect and act if two markers touched the screen at the same time, but discovered that the app was inconsistent when identifying individual marker codes. As the markers that the lab already had were a little worn out and folded on the corners, we decided to try printing out new markers and fiddle around to see the smallest marker that the app could still accurately detect. Using the MarkerFactory application, we created, saved, and printed new markers of varying sizes to test against the app. | ||
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| + | We created the smallest markers that could still be detected on the screen, and then began incorporating them into the app. | ||
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| + | 6/11/2015: Day 9 | ||
| + | Today we simplified our code to match the “Bac to Mars” idea that we had shared with Romie and Anja. Now, the starting screen appears with five bacteria with “empty” plasmids. When you click on the bacteria, it increases in size and a text box appears with information about the bacteria. Once you tap on the bacteria with four different markers, a new plasmid pops up of four different colors based on what markers you used to tap. The text-box then pops up, listing the markers’ codes of the colors within the plasmid. | ||
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| + | We also brainstormed possible plasmid token/physical representation ideas-- as of now, we are thinking of some large, donut-shaped object with spots for physical representations of different genes to fit in, like a puzzle. | ||
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| + | We then hit a few dead ends in terms of technical stuff-- the screen sometimes has trouble recognizing the markers correctly/at all, which can be problematic in the future when the users are creating their customized plasmids. In addition, we wanted to incorporate a TextEditWidget where a keyboard appears on screen and users are able to name their own bacteria, but for some reason the interface crashes upon inspection. We sent a few questions to one of the Cornerstone engineers and are eagerly awaiting his response so we can proceed! | ||
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| + | 6/12/2015: Day 10 | ||
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| + | We had a very productive morning creating another possible interface, that allows users to choose the gene that they want to insert into their plasmid-- we began with a fun “flavor” example. Users can drag a fruit representing their favorite flavor into a flask, which represents extracting a flavor-gene from the fruit and eventually showing it as a physical object that the user can place into their plasmid. | ||
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| + | We then had a quick Google Hangout check-in with Romie and Anja to show them the two applications. They seemed pleased, and I’m definitely excited to meet with them in person on Monday! | ||
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| + | 6/15/2015: Day 11 | ||
| + | We began today with an ethics workshop where we discussed the fundamental guidelines and foundations of ethics in scientific experiments. The lecture was mainly focused on plagiarism- its definition, its use with or without the intent to deceive, the amount of previous knowledge that people enter college/grad school with, and its consequences. We also had a conversation about ownership, and it was just a very odd concept to me that upon submitting an article to a journal, the journal now owns those words and you cannot re-use your own words without asking for permission. Overall, this was quite an interesting workshop-- all throughout elementary school and middle school I’ve heard “Don’t plagiarize! Or else…” but I’ve never had a very full understanding of what fits into that definition and the possible repercussions. It was definitely a useful time. | ||
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| + | We then had a large, collaborative brainstorming and sharing session with Romie and Anja. Both the Wellesley-side and The Tech-side shared our available resources-- we introduced them to the educational tools and technology we have in the HCI lab, and they shared the current and future exhibits that they are working on as well as the technology that are available alongside those exhibits. It was very exciting to see what The Tech is working on and the educational concepts that they want to teach, and there were definitely moments where they shared hopeful ideas (such as representing bacterial growth and development) and I thought, “We can definitely program that!” I’m glad that we had the first two weeks to tinker around and further understand Cornerstone. | ||
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| + | Tonight, we’ve all been assigned to find possible biobricks that can be applied in our project from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Finding these biobricks requires going through previous iGEM projects which is absolutely fascinating-- I’m so amazed at the incredible creativity and scientific ability of some of the teams! Looking forward to returning to the lab tomorrow to share my findings and hear about what others discovered. | ||
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| + | 6/16/2015: Day 12 | ||
| + | This morning we all shared the individual research we had done last evening and took inventory of all of the biobricks we had discovered. Afterwards, we continued to brainstorm and flesh out possible ideas. We finalized Mars, Deep Sea (Cave), and Antarctica as locations for our users to explore, and then moved on to brainstorm possible storylines and discuss what expectations the users approach the exhibit with. I am learning that there are so many other things to consider and discuss outside of just the software/back-end-- we’re doing so much more than just coding, which I’m glad about- I love this design and brainstorming bit and I want to learn more about what has to go about for an entire exhibit to come together. | ||
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| + | Now set in the storyline of creating bacteria that can help the user survive Mars, the deep sea, and Antarctica, we began furthering our ideas of the actual interface on a MultiTaction. Romie and Anja presented us with a paper prototype they had used for a separate museum exhibit to give us an idea of the look and function of a paper prototype. We then started created our own paper prototypes-- we sat on the ground, crowded around a single piece of paper, discussing and sketching, and the entire time I just felt my heart was rising up in excitement. I’m very interested in education and teaching STEM subjects from a young age, and creating an interface introducing synthetic biology that is tailored to be accessible and understandable for young children merges all of these dreams. The experience was even better because I was around really passionate, intelligent, down-to-earth people all just as committed to making this project the best it could be. | ||
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| + | From now until Friday, our team has to actually create a paper prototype, test it on some young children (probably Orit’s kids!), start actually programming the back-end, and come up with a presentation to share our project at the iGEM meetup this Friday. Wow. This all sounds like a lot, but I am also thinking of previous times/projects where it seemed like I could not possibly get everything done and it all worked out-- and now, I am working with a very dedicated and lovely team, so I know we will work it out. I plan on going to bed early tonight and coming in fresh and rejuvenated tomorrow morning! | ||
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| + | 6/17/2015: Day 13 | ||
| + | Today we focused on creating our paper prototyping. Even though right now, it doesn’t look like much, actually creating the prototype initiated a lot of conversations and discussions. We had to chat about many aspects of how our application would run that we hadn’t considered before. It was my first experience creating a paper prototype, and I really enjoyed it! Looking forward to introducing it to Orit’s kids tomorrow. | ||
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| + | 6/18/2015: Day 14 | ||
| + | Today was a busy day! We worked all morning on finishing up our prototype to show Orit’s kids Ben and Daniel. Once they came in, we ran through a couple of test scenarios on paper. | ||
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| + | They were both very engaged and interested in the prototype, and also had some great feedback and ideas, including incorporating videoclips onto the screen and making the “Challenges” more difficult. We will definitely incorporate some of these into our project! It was very exciting to see people actually interact with what we had made so far-- I couldn’t wait to hear their feedback and see how they responded. | ||
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| + | 6/19/2015: Day 15 | ||
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| + | Today's NEGEM meet up went (surprisingly) well! Our presentations were very well received by the other iGEM teams-- we definitely stood out as a team competing on the community lab track and thus focusing on making synthetic biology more accessible and educating others about general synbio concepts rather than actually doing the science. A majority of the other undergrads participating in iGEM are studying a form of biology-- synthetic biology, computational biology, biochemistry-- which made me a little nervous about presenting our project, but people were actually very interested and curious about our software and the technology we were using. | ||
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| + | Later in the day there was an hour allotted for all attendees to discuss their current progress, next steps, and possible collaborations in a smaller group. There (and in our evaluation forms!) we got some excellent feedback for making the science more accurate. I especially enjoyed chatting with some members from the MIT and BU iGEM teams who made suggestions on certain key aspects of the scientific process to include in our program. I have so much respect for these students who are so learned in synthetic biology and spoke to us with so much patience and willingness to help. | ||
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| + | Traci Haddock brought up a very good point that we are in Boston, the hub of synthetic biology-- besides just doing our user testings on young kids to see how they respond, we should also reach out to some experts in the field to gauge how accurate the science is, how well they think that process is portrayed, etc. I think that the HCI lab has many possible contacts who would be happy to help out, from trained professionals to members of other iGEM teams! | ||
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| + | Overall, today was really wonderful! Looking forward to incorporating some of these ideas on Monday! | ||
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| + | 6/22/2015: Day 16 monday | ||
| + | Today we began programming the basic layout of the widgets and planning everything out in the most effective way. As we begin today, I understand the true importance of making a paper prototype before actually programming so we can all be on the same page of how features will work and the software’s layout. | ||
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| + | 6/23/2015: Day 17 tuesday | ||
| + | Today we finalized the basic layout and made certain features (such as the scanner) functional, but the software is still having trouble with marker recognition. We reprinted out markers and attached them to new vessels with which to use them, but it’s still a bit funky. We’ll come back and try again tomorrow! | ||
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| + | 6/24/2015: Day 18 wednesday | ||
| + | We finished most of the basic functionality today. In the afternoon, we were informed that due to the way that the MultiTaction screens are set up at The Tech, we cannot use the set up that we had had of two “scenes” on one screen. We began re-designing, and continued on functionality. | ||
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| + | 6/25/2015: Day 19 thursday | ||
| + | Today, we checked in with Orit and discussed our next few steps- we’ve been working on functionality, but now we are beginning to see more of a need for an alternative design that is more collaboration-focused. We continued to brainstorm possible designs. | ||
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| + | 6/26/2015: Day 20 friday | ||
| + | We spent the morning going over our designs and listening pros and cons of each, and then after lunch we met Mike Horn, an assistant professor at Northwestern and the director of Northwestern’s TIDAL (Tangible Interaction Design and Learning) lab. He showed us some of the projects that TIDAL is working on and it was so incredibly exciting to see the ways his lab applies computational thinking and computer science to education. He also shared some helpful literature with us, including Thomas Humphrey’s Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement, which was very interesting to read and very applicable to what we’re working on. Today was such an exciting day. | ||
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| + | 6/29/2015: Day 21 monday | ||
| + | We devoted all of today to brainstorming and creating a new paper prototype! A busy day. | ||
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| + | 6/30/2015: Day 22 tuesday | ||
| + | Today we finished the paper prototype and chatted with Stephanie Houde, a Wellesley grad with a lot of graphic design experience. She shared a lot of tips, including taking photos of each step and how to consider animations that inform the user how to proceed, including exaggeration and “amping up” to introduce movement/animation about to occur. | ||
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| + | 7/1/2015: Day 23 wednesday | ||
| + | What a big day! Natalie stopped by to see how we were doing. It had been a month since we’d seen her, so obviously things had progressed quite a bit- since then, we had (for the most part) finalized our concept, goals to teach, design layout, and paper prototype. She gave a lot of helpful feedback, especially on the actual scientific accuracy. We had an interesting conversation about what aspects of the scientific process we would have in the software side (without being too complex and confusing for users!) and what we would have in the actual wetlab component. | ||
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| + | We also looked at possible artistic designs with Casey. It was great to walk through the paper prototype with them since they have had so much experience with iGEM. It’s exciting to know that actual designs are on their way! | ||
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| + | Finally after Natalie and Casey’s feedback, we had a new version of our paper prototype! We created a video for Romie and Anja to keep us updated. | ||
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| + | The lab had a few other new people today as well-- two high school interns arrived today! Since both have had some C++ experience, over the next few weeks they’ll be playing around with Cornerstone as well and creating their own apps. | ||
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| + | 7/2/2015: Day 24 Thursday | ||
| + | Today we examined the suggestions given by the lab’s design cards and jotted down how our project fulfills each requirement. We also created a document to note our official phrasing and write-ups for the prototype/project. Finally, we conducted a few user studies with some other Wellesley students who had little background knowledge of how we’d prepared the | ||
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| + | Tomorrow we’ll work on: finalize among us phrasing and consider design possibilities | ||
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| + | 7/6/15: Day 25 | ||
| + | We’re continuing to work towards fulfilling basic functionality of our software, and planning a meetup with the BU and MIT iGEM teams! I’m so excited for the chance to meet with two other teams and to share ideas and feedback. Tomorrow we’ll be meeting with Casey, a recent Wellesley grad who has participated in many previous iGEM competitions, to discuss artwork and designs for the final project! | ||
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| + | 7/7/15 | ||
| + | Today, Casey came in and showed us their notebook and concept art thus far-- everything looks so incredible, and having a lot of potential! It’s very helpful that they’re familiar with iGEM and designing for clients, but they also have a great designer’s eye and are so artistic. | ||
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| + | 7/8/15 | ||
| + | Today we continued to work on our presentation, and work on adding functionality & incorporating. | ||
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| + | 7/9/15 | ||
| + | Today we gave our presentation at the student talks-- it overall went very well! People were definitely very interested in actually getting to know what projects we are working on in the lab and it was exciting on our end to be able to share how the project has changed over various iterations of brainstorming, designing, and redesigning. Preparing for this presentation has also been a great opportunity to put into words the process and ideas and concepts that we’ve been using this summer, which will come in handy for our actual iGEM presentation and for writing future articles and such. | ||
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| + | 7/10/15 | ||
| + | Our lab took the day off to visit the Museum of Science’s special exhibit on Pixar! It was an incredible experience and an opportunity to see the incredible amount of math and physics that goes on behind the scenes to add lights, flesh out characters, design a set, and create the world in a Pixar film. | ||
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| + | 7/13/15 | ||
| + | Today we continued to incorporate Casey’s artwork into our project-- the beautifully designed pieces add so much to our program experience! We also worked on our project description, looked into more iGEM requirements, and discussed possibly meeting with Wellesley’s science center machinist, Larry, to work with the laser cutter to create our tangibles! | ||
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| + | 7/14/15 | ||
| + | We’re still working on the functionality -- today we specifically looked at the tracking of coordinates and math to tell the flasks when they’re “on Mars”. We determined the background image’s points, at what coordinates Mars began, ended, and the length of its radius. We then checked the points of the flasks, and calculated the distance of the flask from Mars’ “midpoint”-- if its distance was less than the length of Mars’ radius, we programmed the animation to display deploying the bacteria to Mars. This ended up being trickier than expected because the Widgets displaying the petri dishes on the two sides are rotated, and thus their X and Y values are flipped. Furthermore, each Widget is a child Widget of a larger Widget, and their coordinates are relative to their Parent Widget. Figuring out the absolute locations of the Widgets and thus calculating their distances took some time, but we finally got it! | ||
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| + | wednesday 7/15/15 | ||
| + | Today we built off of the victory of yesterday and programmed the flasks to rotate in the direction of Mars’ center to create the illusion that the flasks deploy the bacteria onto Mars. We checked in with our PI, sent out an updated list of designs and artistic things needed to Casey, and scheduled a meeting with Larry to receive laser cutter training. Then, the HCI lab met with the MIT App Inventor team and showed them some demos of the research we were working on. It was very exciting to meet everyone on the team and learn about their very cool work (and some of their ties with iGEM!) | ||
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| + | thursday 7/16/15 | ||
| + | This morning we had our training with Larry on laser cutting basics-- it was so exciting to be in the machine shop and see all of the machinery at work. We made a simple “Hello World”-esque plaque for Johanna, and explored the other things and opportunities in the shop! Casey also sent us a lot of beautiful artwork and designs that we incorporated-- very exciting :) | ||
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| + | friday 7/17/15 | ||
| + | Today we’ve been doing our best to pull everything together and have the best possible prototype for when the BU and MIT iGEM teams come visit us tomorrow! We’re also discussing next steps to take! | ||
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| + | monday 7/20/15 | ||
| + | Today we reflected on how the BU/MIT iGEM teams’ comments and made some adjustments to our project accordingly. In particular, people wanted specific instructions at every step of the process, so we created “bubble instructions” and contact Casey to ask for a template of message images and icons. We also continued to look into creating the tangibles, including contacting Larry about materials and googling pros and cons of different materials and where to order them from. | ||
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| + | tuesday 7/21 | ||
| + | Today we continued discussing how to obtain different materials with Larry, added status bar functionality, and generally prepped for prototyping-- tomorrow, three high school interns will be coming to our lab to try out the project. I am very excited to see how people interact with it and how they feel, especially since I couldn’t attend the BU/MIT meet up! | ||
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| + | In the afternoon, Lauren, Lily and I headed over to the Museum of Science for their Building with Biology Event training. Building with Biology is an event for scientists and the public to have open conversations about the synthetic biology field and its applications, and clear up public misconceptions. It’s exciting to be helping out at this event and continue working on public perceptions of synthetic biology. There are a lot of prominent synthetic biologists presenting at the event, including Natalie Kuldell! | ||
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| + | wednesday 7/22 | ||
| + | Casey sent us the art for message templates-- a way for us to communicate with the user what their next step is! We created the bubble-like messages and added them to the screen, we feel excited and ready to be testing with some high school interns at noon! | ||
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| + | When the interns came in to play around with our exhibit, they were definitely excited by the premise and platform of the project-- they liked making different combinations of genes, but without the animation of the plasmid entering the bacteria they found it difficult to understand the actual scientific process that the tangibles represented. Will be making changes to make this process more transparent. | ||
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| + | thursday 7/23 | ||
| + | We spent this morning focused on debugging, and figured out how to make the marker recognition more consistent and reliable. | ||
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| + | Today was a big day in terms of user testing-- the MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound program of fifty high school students visited our lab and interacted with our prototype in groups of four or five. It was a wonderful experience-- it was very helpful to see how people first approached the exhibit and what questions they had along the way. We learned that we definitely need more explicit instructions and labeling of items on the screen, and also discovered a bunch of new bugs that had never showed up before! | ||
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| + | With learning all of this new information and finishing the last week before the poster session and when we leave, we are realizing how much work there still is! It’s really crunch time: we listed everything left to do and divided it over the last days of work. We’re ready to come in tomorrow fresh and ready to redesign. | ||
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| + | friday 7/24 | ||
| + | Hello! This is crunch week, and we’re ready to go. Today we finished our research abstracts- a general one, and one targeted for a more scientific audience-- both of which are required as part of our summer spent doing research at Wellesley. We also have decided to incorporate videos into our exhibit, and so we’ve asked the interns to find some informational and educational videos about synthetic biology and the cell duplication process. | ||
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| + | We also confirmed an appointment with Larry to go down to the machinery and cut the tangibles out. Our materials arrived, and we’re looking forward to meeting with Larry to cut next Wednesday! | ||
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| + | In the afternoon, we updated the “reset” functionality so that the petri dishes fully reset when the user clicks the “Reset” button-- previous there were some bugs that included the bacteria and other buttons still appearing when they should have been removed from the screen. | ||
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| + | monday 7/27 | ||
| + | Over the weekend, Casey sent us some beautiful art files. When we came in today, we immediately updated everything that they had sent us-- their art makes our work look so much better and makes the exhibit so much easier to understand! For example, they’ve sent us a glowing flask and animations of a plasmid entering a bacteria, which greatly help users understand how to proceed and what their actions are representing. Other art changes include a glowing animation around status bars which draws attention to the change due to the user’s work. We also finished the logic for programming the bacteria to go to a certain part of Mars depending on their “Have” or “If”, and fixed a bug that was displaying the wrong animation at certain points. Looking forward to continuing to work tomorrow! | ||
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| + | tuesday 7/28 | ||
| + | We stayed late today to finish our exhibit!!! Yay!!! This included creating and adding information messages, sending Larry our tangible files to prepare for laser cutting tomorrow (!), researching and adding additional scientific background for each gene, incorporating the rest of Casey’s animations, making editing when the status bars flicker, and adding videos to the project. I love how it looks, and I’m so proud of how far this exhibit has come. | ||
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| + | wednesday 7/29 | ||
| + | This morning we met with Larry to laser cut our tangibles! It was such an exciting process to see them being made and have the physical parts present. We created a video of the current prototype for Romie and Anja, and then focused most of our day on building our poster. It is very visual and colorful, and I love it! | ||
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| + | thursday 7/30 | ||
| + | Today was poster session day!! We started the day off by printing our beautiful poster and finishing up details with the tangibles, practiced our presentations, and went down to the science library to present! | ||
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| + | I felt very excited and proud to show what we had worked so hard on to create. The Multitaction itself drew many interested attendees, and we were swamped with people asking questions and asking to test it out. The best part was having some younger attendees (probably age 7 - 9) playing with it-- they were enthralled! They kept making different combinations of genes and trying to provide resources to Mars to fill the resource status bars. Most of our prototype testing had been with an older audience, so it was very relieving and exciting to see how captivated the younger audience was. | ||
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Revision as of 02:22, 19 September 2015
NOTEBOOKS
Vivien's Notebook
6/1/2015: Day 1 Today was the first day and I feel so overwhelmed (in the best way) and excited to be introduced to all of these new CS softwares and applications of CS in education. We began with a lab orientation, and then split off into our teams to begin brainstorming and training. The iGEM team (Rachel, Sam, and I) started by researching iGEM medal requirements and gaining a deeper understanding of the iGEM competition. We had already done some prior research about the iGEM competition and previous Wellesley iGEM teams’ projects, but getting familiar with iGEM requirements made me begin to more fully grasp the great effort and time that would be put into these projects- but also made me all the more excited to be pursuing them. We downloaded the software that we would be using (Cornerstone SDK) and spent the rest of the day exploring the provided examples and examining the different ways we could interact with the Widgets. I feel very excited and optimistic about the upcoming work. 6/2/2015: Day 2 Today we began work on our own example application! We created our own basic “Hello World”-level app that featured rectangles, which upon tapping specific ones, would duplicate below where your finger touched the screen. We started playing around with the shapes, and changed the rectangles to circles. The signature for creating circles seemed to be very simple and similar to drawing rectangles, but by examining the different parameters that each method took in, we became introduced to new concepts such as Nimble Vector2fs. As of now, we are trying to restrict the Widgets to the screen and prevent them from accidentally being pushed offscreen and becoming inaccessible. 6/3/2015: Day 3 After changing the Widget shapes to circles, we ultimately changed our main Widget shape to be an ellipse. This choice made us start to consider other ways that we can apply basic concepts of synthetic biology to our project, so we decided to have two forms of Widgets-- large white “E. Coli” and smaller, more colorful widgets that represent viruses. We hoped to display and share the concept of bacteria absorbing or “eating” a virus. Currently in our app, if a E.Coli and virus intersect, the E. Coli “eats” the virus and the virus appears within the E.Coli to represent its infection. When an infected E.Coli collides with a non-infected E.Coli, the second E.Coli displays the same virus to represent contamination. When you tap a virus, three new viruses are created to simulate the virus growing on its own. We are struggling with keeping the virus within the boundaries of the E.Coli parent widget, and working on inspecting the Widgets’ locations and reference points so that we can better understand how to work with them. 6/4/2015: Day 4 Today was a very successful day! We added movement to the Widgets so that when left unattended, the E.Coli and viruses float about on their own. The use of markers has also been incorporated, so that tapping a marker to the screen creates a new Bacteria. In addition, we managed to set boundaries around the screen to prevent the Widgets from going out of frame. Another exciting new addition is that the E.Coli now individually grow in size and once they reach a certain size, divide into two separate E.Coli. If the original E.Coli was infected with a virus, the new E.Coli will also display its infection. This process is accurate and true to the natural E.Coli growth and division process. Our next step is hopefully to keep the Widgets from overlapping and to eventually make them bounce off of one another upon intersection. 6/5/2015: Day 5 We have started programming specific actions for specific markers-- now, one marker creates a new Bacteria, one removes that specific Bacteria, and one displays the bacteria’s infection status with a simple attached textbox that states “Infected” or “Not infected”. We have also introduced ImageWidgets into our app so that we can have custom images deployed onto our app. We have only just started to realize the vast number of directions that this app/exhibit can go in and the many different concepts it can teach, and this textbox that will share the bacteria’s status is a great example of the different possibilities we can teach and display. For our next steps, we want to program the widgets to bounce off of another, and eventually try introducing video and text to the screen that can play and display independently. 6/8/2015: Day 6 Today Natalie Kuldell stopped by the lab and led a few discussions about presenting and teaching synthetic biology as well as the complexities and controversies surrounding the topic. It was quite a wonderful experience-- I definitely admire a lot of the work Natalie has done- teaching and developing curriculum at multiple undergraduate institutes, founding BioBuilder Educational Foundation (a non-profit that teaches biology/synthetic biology topics online, making this knowledge widely available and accessible), working as a visiting scientist in labs… she clearly communicated her deep understanding of teaching and interacting with others and the greater implications and questions of synthetic biology. We began our day with a short presentation by Natalie where she defined the study of synthetic biology and, upon learning that most of the team-members had more of a computer science background than biology background, began introducing these biological concepts as forms of coding. She also explained the link between biology and engineering by passing out small educational kits comprised of mini-breadboards, wires, batteries, LED lights, and more where we could explore how biology functions to create its own “hardware”. She then gave us a brief but very interesting lecture on the actual science behind how genes are expressed. I understand that our exhibit will probably focus on the user being able to “make and tinker” than on the actual science, but it is still helpful for us to better understand what we may eventually represent and display. I loved hearing Natalie teach-- she is very present and energetic. We then went on to discuss some of the most famous synthetic biology experiments and previous iGEM submissions such as bacterial photography, E. chromi, Eau that Smell, Colorful World, etc. Throughout the day, Natalie kept giving tips of what to keep in mind when designing a museum exhibit- such as taking into account the convenience of recovering/restoring materials (both accessibility and in monetary value), considering the attention span of the museum-goers, understandability (e.g. would a facilitator or written instructions be needed?), and how concrete or abstract the concepts that we would eventually teach would be. Each point was definitely helpful, and something that I had not fully considered at that time. This has been true during this summer research program thus far, as well as through previous years of experience-- but the more that I learn, the more I realize how little I actually understand in the world. However, I only feel that much more energized and excited to fill in the gaps and pursue what I don’t know. Today was a very full day-- we learned a lot of hard biology, we chatted about how museum-goers would experience our product, we discussed how to bring up this sensitive topic… I feel optimistic and ready to move forward tomorrow and the rest of the summer! 6/9/2015: Day 7 Today was an intense session of brainstorming. We spent the morning coming up with three separate, very different possible museum exhibit ideas and designs to show Romie and Anja during our Skype call at 2:30. Our current ideas are affectionately titled “BacMan”, “BacFarm”, and “Bac to Mars”, and I’m excited to pursue work on any of them! During the call, they were both very pleasant and seem very committed to cultivating a creative space where museum-goers can learn in novel ways, and I’m definitely excited to work closer with them over the next few months. We left the Skype call with the intention of beginning to pursue one of the ideas (probably the Mars exhibition, affectionately titled Bac to Mars) with the more specific technical goal of furthering our understanding of Cornerstone markers-- figuring out how to get the screen to recognize multiple and respond differently to a set. By then, we were pretty worn out from a day of such brainstorming and creative thinking, so we spent the last hour helping transcribe interviews gathering information for another project happening in the HCI lab. I’m looking forward to coming in tomorrow and tackling markers. 6/10/2015: Day 8 We began the day with the goal of further exploring and understanding the Cornerstone Marker documentation. We were able to program our app to detect and act if two markers touched the screen at the same time, but discovered that the app was inconsistent when identifying individual marker codes. As the markers that the lab already had were a little worn out and folded on the corners, we decided to try printing out new markers and fiddle around to see the smallest marker that the app could still accurately detect. Using the MarkerFactory application, we created, saved, and printed new markers of varying sizes to test against the app. We created the smallest markers that could still be detected on the screen, and then began incorporating them into the app. 6/11/2015: Day 9 Today we simplified our code to match the “Bac to Mars” idea that we had shared with Romie and Anja. Now, the starting screen appears with five bacteria with “empty” plasmids. When you click on the bacteria, it increases in size and a text box appears with information about the bacteria. Once you tap on the bacteria with four different markers, a new plasmid pops up of four different colors based on what markers you used to tap. The text-box then pops up, listing the markers’ codes of the colors within the plasmid. We also brainstormed possible plasmid token/physical representation ideas-- as of now, we are thinking of some large, donut-shaped object with spots for physical representations of different genes to fit in, like a puzzle. We then hit a few dead ends in terms of technical stuff-- the screen sometimes has trouble recognizing the markers correctly/at all, which can be problematic in the future when the users are creating their customized plasmids. In addition, we wanted to incorporate a TextEditWidget where a keyboard appears on screen and users are able to name their own bacteria, but for some reason the interface crashes upon inspection. We sent a few questions to one of the Cornerstone engineers and are eagerly awaiting his response so we can proceed! 6/12/2015: Day 10 We had a very productive morning creating another possible interface, that allows users to choose the gene that they want to insert into their plasmid-- we began with a fun “flavor” example. Users can drag a fruit representing their favorite flavor into a flask, which represents extracting a flavor-gene from the fruit and eventually showing it as a physical object that the user can place into their plasmid. We then had a quick Google Hangout check-in with Romie and Anja to show them the two applications. They seemed pleased, and I’m definitely excited to meet with them in person on Monday! 6/15/2015: Day 11 We began today with an ethics workshop where we discussed the fundamental guidelines and foundations of ethics in scientific experiments. The lecture was mainly focused on plagiarism- its definition, its use with or without the intent to deceive, the amount of previous knowledge that people enter college/grad school with, and its consequences. We also had a conversation about ownership, and it was just a very odd concept to me that upon submitting an article to a journal, the journal now owns those words and you cannot re-use your own words without asking for permission. Overall, this was quite an interesting workshop-- all throughout elementary school and middle school I’ve heard “Don’t plagiarize! Or else…” but I’ve never had a very full understanding of what fits into that definition and the possible repercussions. It was definitely a useful time. We then had a large, collaborative brainstorming and sharing session with Romie and Anja. Both the Wellesley-side and The Tech-side shared our available resources-- we introduced them to the educational tools and technology we have in the HCI lab, and they shared the current and future exhibits that they are working on as well as the technology that are available alongside those exhibits. It was very exciting to see what The Tech is working on and the educational concepts that they want to teach, and there were definitely moments where they shared hopeful ideas (such as representing bacterial growth and development) and I thought, “We can definitely program that!” I’m glad that we had the first two weeks to tinker around and further understand Cornerstone. Tonight, we’ve all been assigned to find possible biobricks that can be applied in our project from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Finding these biobricks requires going through previous iGEM projects which is absolutely fascinating-- I’m so amazed at the incredible creativity and scientific ability of some of the teams! Looking forward to returning to the lab tomorrow to share my findings and hear about what others discovered. 6/16/2015: Day 12 This morning we all shared the individual research we had done last evening and took inventory of all of the biobricks we had discovered. Afterwards, we continued to brainstorm and flesh out possible ideas. We finalized Mars, Deep Sea (Cave), and Antarctica as locations for our users to explore, and then moved on to brainstorm possible storylines and discuss what expectations the users approach the exhibit with. I am learning that there are so many other things to consider and discuss outside of just the software/back-end-- we’re doing so much more than just coding, which I’m glad about- I love this design and brainstorming bit and I want to learn more about what has to go about for an entire exhibit to come together. Now set in the storyline of creating bacteria that can help the user survive Mars, the deep sea, and Antarctica, we began furthering our ideas of the actual interface on a MultiTaction. Romie and Anja presented us with a paper prototype they had used for a separate museum exhibit to give us an idea of the look and function of a paper prototype. We then started created our own paper prototypes-- we sat on the ground, crowded around a single piece of paper, discussing and sketching, and the entire time I just felt my heart was rising up in excitement. I’m very interested in education and teaching STEM subjects from a young age, and creating an interface introducing synthetic biology that is tailored to be accessible and understandable for young children merges all of these dreams. The experience was even better because I was around really passionate, intelligent, down-to-earth people all just as committed to making this project the best it could be. From now until Friday, our team has to actually create a paper prototype, test it on some young children (probably Orit’s kids!), start actually programming the back-end, and come up with a presentation to share our project at the iGEM meetup this Friday. Wow. This all sounds like a lot, but I am also thinking of previous times/projects where it seemed like I could not possibly get everything done and it all worked out-- and now, I am working with a very dedicated and lovely team, so I know we will work it out. I plan on going to bed early tonight and coming in fresh and rejuvenated tomorrow morning! 6/17/2015: Day 13 Today we focused on creating our paper prototyping. Even though right now, it doesn’t look like much, actually creating the prototype initiated a lot of conversations and discussions. We had to chat about many aspects of how our application would run that we hadn’t considered before. It was my first experience creating a paper prototype, and I really enjoyed it! Looking forward to introducing it to Orit’s kids tomorrow. 6/18/2015: Day 14 Today was a busy day! We worked all morning on finishing up our prototype to show Orit’s kids Ben and Daniel. Once they came in, we ran through a couple of test scenarios on paper. They were both very engaged and interested in the prototype, and also had some great feedback and ideas, including incorporating videoclips onto the screen and making the “Challenges” more difficult. We will definitely incorporate some of these into our project! It was very exciting to see people actually interact with what we had made so far-- I couldn’t wait to hear their feedback and see how they responded. 6/19/2015: Day 15 Today's NEGEM meet up went (surprisingly) well! Our presentations were very well received by the other iGEM teams-- we definitely stood out as a team competing on the community lab track and thus focusing on making synthetic biology more accessible and educating others about general synbio concepts rather than actually doing the science. A majority of the other undergrads participating in iGEM are studying a form of biology-- synthetic biology, computational biology, biochemistry-- which made me a little nervous about presenting our project, but people were actually very interested and curious about our software and the technology we were using. Later in the day there was an hour allotted for all attendees to discuss their current progress, next steps, and possible collaborations in a smaller group. There (and in our evaluation forms!) we got some excellent feedback for making the science more accurate. I especially enjoyed chatting with some members from the MIT and BU iGEM teams who made suggestions on certain key aspects of the scientific process to include in our program. I have so much respect for these students who are so learned in synthetic biology and spoke to us with so much patience and willingness to help. Traci Haddock brought up a very good point that we are in Boston, the hub of synthetic biology-- besides just doing our user testings on young kids to see how they respond, we should also reach out to some experts in the field to gauge how accurate the science is, how well they think that process is portrayed, etc. I think that the HCI lab has many possible contacts who would be happy to help out, from trained professionals to members of other iGEM teams! Overall, today was really wonderful! Looking forward to incorporating some of these ideas on Monday! 6/22/2015: Day 16 monday Today we began programming the basic layout of the widgets and planning everything out in the most effective way. As we begin today, I understand the true importance of making a paper prototype before actually programming so we can all be on the same page of how features will work and the software’s layout. 6/23/2015: Day 17 tuesday Today we finalized the basic layout and made certain features (such as the scanner) functional, but the software is still having trouble with marker recognition. We reprinted out markers and attached them to new vessels with which to use them, but it’s still a bit funky. We’ll come back and try again tomorrow! 6/24/2015: Day 18 wednesday We finished most of the basic functionality today. In the afternoon, we were informed that due to the way that the MultiTaction screens are set up at The Tech, we cannot use the set up that we had had of two “scenes” on one screen. We began re-designing, and continued on functionality. 6/25/2015: Day 19 thursday Today, we checked in with Orit and discussed our next few steps- we’ve been working on functionality, but now we are beginning to see more of a need for an alternative design that is more collaboration-focused. We continued to brainstorm possible designs. 6/26/2015: Day 20 friday We spent the morning going over our designs and listening pros and cons of each, and then after lunch we met Mike Horn, an assistant professor at Northwestern and the director of Northwestern’s TIDAL (Tangible Interaction Design and Learning) lab. He showed us some of the projects that TIDAL is working on and it was so incredibly exciting to see the ways his lab applies computational thinking and computer science to education. He also shared some helpful literature with us, including Thomas Humphrey’s Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement, which was very interesting to read and very applicable to what we’re working on. Today was such an exciting day. 6/29/2015: Day 21 monday We devoted all of today to brainstorming and creating a new paper prototype! A busy day. 6/30/2015: Day 22 tuesday Today we finished the paper prototype and chatted with Stephanie Houde, a Wellesley grad with a lot of graphic design experience. She shared a lot of tips, including taking photos of each step and how to consider animations that inform the user how to proceed, including exaggeration and “amping up” to introduce movement/animation about to occur. 7/1/2015: Day 23 wednesday What a big day! Natalie stopped by to see how we were doing. It had been a month since we’d seen her, so obviously things had progressed quite a bit- since then, we had (for the most part) finalized our concept, goals to teach, design layout, and paper prototype. She gave a lot of helpful feedback, especially on the actual scientific accuracy. We had an interesting conversation about what aspects of the scientific process we would have in the software side (without being too complex and confusing for users!) and what we would have in the actual wetlab component. We also looked at possible artistic designs with Casey. It was great to walk through the paper prototype with them since they have had so much experience with iGEM. It’s exciting to know that actual designs are on their way! Finally after Natalie and Casey’s feedback, we had a new version of our paper prototype! We created a video for Romie and Anja to keep us updated. The lab had a few other new people today as well-- two high school interns arrived today! Since both have had some C++ experience, over the next few weeks they’ll be playing around with Cornerstone as well and creating their own apps. 7/2/2015: Day 24 Thursday Today we examined the suggestions given by the lab’s design cards and jotted down how our project fulfills each requirement. We also created a document to note our official phrasing and write-ups for the prototype/project. Finally, we conducted a few user studies with some other Wellesley students who had little background knowledge of how we’d prepared the Tomorrow we’ll work on: finalize among us phrasing and consider design possibilities 7/6/15: Day 25 We’re continuing to work towards fulfilling basic functionality of our software, and planning a meetup with the BU and MIT iGEM teams! I’m so excited for the chance to meet with two other teams and to share ideas and feedback. Tomorrow we’ll be meeting with Casey, a recent Wellesley grad who has participated in many previous iGEM competitions, to discuss artwork and designs for the final project! 7/7/15 Today, Casey came in and showed us their notebook and concept art thus far-- everything looks so incredible, and having a lot of potential! It’s very helpful that they’re familiar with iGEM and designing for clients, but they also have a great designer’s eye and are so artistic. 7/8/15 Today we continued to work on our presentation, and work on adding functionality & incorporating. 7/9/15 Today we gave our presentation at the student talks-- it overall went very well! People were definitely very interested in actually getting to know what projects we are working on in the lab and it was exciting on our end to be able to share how the project has changed over various iterations of brainstorming, designing, and redesigning. Preparing for this presentation has also been a great opportunity to put into words the process and ideas and concepts that we’ve been using this summer, which will come in handy for our actual iGEM presentation and for writing future articles and such. 7/10/15 Our lab took the day off to visit the Museum of Science’s special exhibit on Pixar! It was an incredible experience and an opportunity to see the incredible amount of math and physics that goes on behind the scenes to add lights, flesh out characters, design a set, and create the world in a Pixar film. 7/13/15 Today we continued to incorporate Casey’s artwork into our project-- the beautifully designed pieces add so much to our program experience! We also worked on our project description, looked into more iGEM requirements, and discussed possibly meeting with Wellesley’s science center machinist, Larry, to work with the laser cutter to create our tangibles! 7/14/15 We’re still working on the functionality -- today we specifically looked at the tracking of coordinates and math to tell the flasks when they’re “on Mars”. We determined the background image’s points, at what coordinates Mars began, ended, and the length of its radius. We then checked the points of the flasks, and calculated the distance of the flask from Mars’ “midpoint”-- if its distance was less than the length of Mars’ radius, we programmed the animation to display deploying the bacteria to Mars. This ended up being trickier than expected because the Widgets displaying the petri dishes on the two sides are rotated, and thus their X and Y values are flipped. Furthermore, each Widget is a child Widget of a larger Widget, and their coordinates are relative to their Parent Widget. Figuring out the absolute locations of the Widgets and thus calculating their distances took some time, but we finally got it! wednesday 7/15/15 Today we built off of the victory of yesterday and programmed the flasks to rotate in the direction of Mars’ center to create the illusion that the flasks deploy the bacteria onto Mars. We checked in with our PI, sent out an updated list of designs and artistic things needed to Casey, and scheduled a meeting with Larry to receive laser cutter training. Then, the HCI lab met with the MIT App Inventor team and showed them some demos of the research we were working on. It was very exciting to meet everyone on the team and learn about their very cool work (and some of their ties with iGEM!) thursday 7/16/15 This morning we had our training with Larry on laser cutting basics-- it was so exciting to be in the machine shop and see all of the machinery at work. We made a simple “Hello World”-esque plaque for Johanna, and explored the other things and opportunities in the shop! Casey also sent us a lot of beautiful artwork and designs that we incorporated-- very exciting :) friday 7/17/15 Today we’ve been doing our best to pull everything together and have the best possible prototype for when the BU and MIT iGEM teams come visit us tomorrow! We’re also discussing next steps to take! monday 7/20/15 Today we reflected on how the BU/MIT iGEM teams’ comments and made some adjustments to our project accordingly. In particular, people wanted specific instructions at every step of the process, so we created “bubble instructions” and contact Casey to ask for a template of message images and icons. We also continued to look into creating the tangibles, including contacting Larry about materials and googling pros and cons of different materials and where to order them from. tuesday 7/21 Today we continued discussing how to obtain different materials with Larry, added status bar functionality, and generally prepped for prototyping-- tomorrow, three high school interns will be coming to our lab to try out the project. I am very excited to see how people interact with it and how they feel, especially since I couldn’t attend the BU/MIT meet up! In the afternoon, Lauren, Lily and I headed over to the Museum of Science for their Building with Biology Event training. Building with Biology is an event for scientists and the public to have open conversations about the synthetic biology field and its applications, and clear up public misconceptions. It’s exciting to be helping out at this event and continue working on public perceptions of synthetic biology. There are a lot of prominent synthetic biologists presenting at the event, including Natalie Kuldell! wednesday 7/22 Casey sent us the art for message templates-- a way for us to communicate with the user what their next step is! We created the bubble-like messages and added them to the screen, we feel excited and ready to be testing with some high school interns at noon! When the interns came in to play around with our exhibit, they were definitely excited by the premise and platform of the project-- they liked making different combinations of genes, but without the animation of the plasmid entering the bacteria they found it difficult to understand the actual scientific process that the tangibles represented. Will be making changes to make this process more transparent. thursday 7/23 We spent this morning focused on debugging, and figured out how to make the marker recognition more consistent and reliable. Today was a big day in terms of user testing-- the MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound program of fifty high school students visited our lab and interacted with our prototype in groups of four or five. It was a wonderful experience-- it was very helpful to see how people first approached the exhibit and what questions they had along the way. We learned that we definitely need more explicit instructions and labeling of items on the screen, and also discovered a bunch of new bugs that had never showed up before! With learning all of this new information and finishing the last week before the poster session and when we leave, we are realizing how much work there still is! It’s really crunch time: we listed everything left to do and divided it over the last days of work. We’re ready to come in tomorrow fresh and ready to redesign. friday 7/24 Hello! This is crunch week, and we’re ready to go. Today we finished our research abstracts- a general one, and one targeted for a more scientific audience-- both of which are required as part of our summer spent doing research at Wellesley. We also have decided to incorporate videos into our exhibit, and so we’ve asked the interns to find some informational and educational videos about synthetic biology and the cell duplication process. We also confirmed an appointment with Larry to go down to the machinery and cut the tangibles out. Our materials arrived, and we’re looking forward to meeting with Larry to cut next Wednesday! In the afternoon, we updated the “reset” functionality so that the petri dishes fully reset when the user clicks the “Reset” button-- previous there were some bugs that included the bacteria and other buttons still appearing when they should have been removed from the screen. monday 7/27 Over the weekend, Casey sent us some beautiful art files. When we came in today, we immediately updated everything that they had sent us-- their art makes our work look so much better and makes the exhibit so much easier to understand! For example, they’ve sent us a glowing flask and animations of a plasmid entering a bacteria, which greatly help users understand how to proceed and what their actions are representing. Other art changes include a glowing animation around status bars which draws attention to the change due to the user’s work. We also finished the logic for programming the bacteria to go to a certain part of Mars depending on their “Have” or “If”, and fixed a bug that was displaying the wrong animation at certain points. Looking forward to continuing to work tomorrow! tuesday 7/28 We stayed late today to finish our exhibit!!! Yay!!! This included creating and adding information messages, sending Larry our tangible files to prepare for laser cutting tomorrow (!), researching and adding additional scientific background for each gene, incorporating the rest of Casey’s animations, making editing when the status bars flicker, and adding videos to the project. I love how it looks, and I’m so proud of how far this exhibit has come. wednesday 7/29 This morning we met with Larry to laser cut our tangibles! It was such an exciting process to see them being made and have the physical parts present. We created a video of the current prototype for Romie and Anja, and then focused most of our day on building our poster. It is very visual and colorful, and I love it! thursday 7/30 Today was poster session day!! We started the day off by printing our beautiful poster and finishing up details with the tangibles, practiced our presentations, and went down to the science library to present! I felt very excited and proud to show what we had worked so hard on to create. The Multitaction itself drew many interested attendees, and we were swamped with people asking questions and asking to test it out. The best part was having some younger attendees (probably age 7 - 9) playing with it-- they were enthralled! They kept making different combinations of genes and trying to provide resources to Mars to fill the resource status bars. Most of our prototype testing had been with an older audience, so it was very relieving and exciting to see how captivated the younger audience was.
Melissa's Notebook
Today was my first day working in the Wellesley HCI lab. This summer I am working with the iGEM team on their competition project. From what I can understand they are working on creating a program that will teach synthetic biology concepts to children through a multitaction cell. As of today, the design is in its planning stages. However, we are getting close to what will be the final design, which is very exciting! I am looking forward to spending the summer working with Sam, Vivien, and Rachel. I hope to learn as much as I can from them. Hopefully they can help me with learning some coding skills over the course of my time here at Wellesley. I can already tell this will be a great summer with the enthusiasm and positive energy that I felt in the lab today.
Today the upward bound kids came to help us test run our prototype. Upward Bound is a summer program that 9-12 grade students take part in on Wellesley's campus. It was interesting to see how they interacted with our prototype. I saw the full range of what someone felt coming up to the multitaction. Some were hesitant to touch it at first while others were excited to run up and start playing. This also helped is with the design process of our prototype. Without this user test, we would not have found some flaws that occurred within our program. For example, a few of the users suggested after interacting with the program that it might be more helpful if there were some more written instructions for them to read as they went along creating their bacteria. Another huge part that they helped us with was allowing us to see how different users worked with the tangibles that we provided them with. Some were not sure what at all to do with them, while others got it right away and were able to get the relation that we tried to convey through the common images on the screen. From that observation, it allowed us to know to add a statement in the instructions for the user on the screen about the tangible element. Currently, our tangibles are still cardboard cutouts. However, shortly we will be laser cutting acrylic to make new tangibles for the final product which is very exciting. But, that also means that things are starting to wrap up for the summer which means that we are so close to what will be the final version of our program.
Today was my last day here in the HCI lab for the summer. Looking back, I realize just how much I learned. Besides gaining some coding languages and skills, I learned a lot about the human component of programming. I learned that you need to think about how someone would try to interact with your program with no knowledge of what to do. As I finish this summer my main goal is to keep learning more coding languages. Also, I am looking forward to rejoining the team in September for the competition. I am excited and thankful to be able to experience this unique opportunity. This summer, the HCI lab and the iGEM team helped to give me a look into what is possible in the computer sciences and what I could do going into the future. I now have a slightly more concentrated view of what I want to do in college and possibly as a profession. Overall, this summer was one never to forget.
Nicole's Notebook
Tuesday, 6/30 -
Today was my first day at Wellesley College. The other interns and I first went to the large open area in the science building to talk about our internship requirements and other housekeeping information. Soon after we arrived our mentors joined us and took us back to the labs for a brief tour. My mentors Sam and Christina showed me the HCI lab and gave me an introduction to the projects the lab was working on. I learned about the PGHCI project and the iGEM project.
Tuesday, 7/7 -
I started working on learning Javascript and html using Codecademy. Also, I helped the PGHCI team by giving them input on how I would organize certain health conditions into categories. This helped the team decide how to sort the diseases and conditions to make it easier for users to understand their genomic information.
Tuesday, 7/21-
I continued to work on learning Javascript on Codecademy. I later helped the iGEM team research biobricks to use in their project, which was creating an interactive museum exhibit to help non-expert museum patrons understand synthetic biology concepts. The biobricks we researched were ones which could be used in bacteria on mars to create a more hospitable environment for human explorers.
Priyanka's Notebook
Throughout the month of July, I worked with the iGEM team and the other two interns, Nicole and Melissa, on the BacPack for New Frontiers project, an interactive display in which bacteria use available resources in extreme environments to make products important for human survival in those areas. For example, on Mars, resources include carbon dioxide, solar energy, soil, ice, and waste, which can be used to make oxygen, water, food, heat, and fuel. One of the tasks that we completed make the project easier to understand for younger students, we came up with simplified definitions for each resource and its use. In addition, we researched basic concepts related to the project such as the definitions of genes, bacterial reproduction, and bacterial colonies.
The third week, some interns from other labs came and tried the interactive display, and we observed them. Their feedback was useful in figuring out which aspects of the project can be improved upon, so that the display is more user-friendly. In addition, in order to explain synthetic biology, we helped add a video with subtitles to the display.
Throughout our time at the HCI lab, we learned JavaScript so that we could understand the code behind the project better. We also experimented with various virtual reality tools, so that we could learn about the kinds of feats that the HCI field can accomplish.