Public Promotion
We are always exploring a more convenient and intuitive new way to promote synthetic biology and iGEM projects better to the broader public. So, this time we have created Poly Cards, a new public education tool to communicate synthetic biology and iGEM projects. The cards have been successfully incorporated biobricks and iGEM projects (see: Poly Cards).
For better practice of Poly Cards, cooperating with Zhejiang China Association for Science and Technology, we held a Syn-bio Share. In the process of teaching and sharing, we try to promote synthetic biology to the public, share iGEM projects in recent years, guide them to brainstorm new ideas, and discuss about safety issue about future (see: Syn-bio Share).
In order to spread the idea of “synthetic biology” to public, we cooperated with Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum (ZJSTM) and built up a community lab (see: Community Lab). Near the end of our project which is also the beginning of a new term, we invited freshmen to join our final seminar and enjoy recent frontier related synthetic-biology science and technology. In the seminar, we shared our project and carried out a short discussion about safety issues (see: Seminar).
Society
May is termites' adult song season, numerous termites fly into houses: rooms are severely damaged, residents could not sleep well, students' daily lives have been spoiled. The whole city is full of complaint and suffering. Thus, thing has to be changed.
So, in the brainstorming phase, ZJU-CHINA 2015 consulted residents around us; high school students; Prof. Mo Jianchu from Institute of Entomology, Zhejiang University; Hangzhou Institute of White Ant Prevention And Cure. A series of consultation helped us to first know about basic cases of termites and current suffering situation in the city. After that, we decided to create something new to terminate termites and so that could save people's life (see: Consultation).
Our project was processing quickly, with the help of the application scenario (see: Synenergene), the original idea could be shared easier. In order to know more about people's need and improve the acceptance of Termite Terminator, we were continuing making surveys throughout the project (see: Survey).
From lots of facts and analysis of the survey, we could find that people's fear of GMOs and the acceptance of a new product were still main points we need to solve in the future. So, to complete the team's reflection, we conducted an experience of Syn-bio Debate and philosophy dialogue throughout the project. What is a successful innovation of a project? Synthetic biology's project stems from life and tries to make a better world. So, one vital point is that how the project can interact with the world naturally.. Based on this thought, except for the throughout philosophy dialogues among iGEM team, we also invited participants from different majors to be in the Syn-bio Debate (see: Syn-bio Debate).
Application
How to apply our product into the real world and achieve its ideal function? Based on current references, ZJU-CHINA 2015 designed the indoor device to achieve the goal of monitoring, trapping, and terminating termites successfully (see: Device).
By writing application scenarios, we have already visualized the intended impact of TERMITE TERMINATOR and present Techno-moral vignettes (see: Synenergene), focusing on the potential wider impacts of our application. According to these unintended scenes, to reduce future risks, a series of warnings have been added to the Instruction Manual can be proposed (see: Instruction Manual).
In the commercial part, we analyzed the feasibility of Termite Terminator, evaluated the cost and more importantly, made the promotion part to smooth future consumers' acceptance of our product (see: Commercial).
Additionally, we imagine what Termite Terminator may become and where it may go after its action in termites' guts. Additionally, we consider possible consequence of the device application. So, we specially made a Safety Tree (see: Safety). Future application shows that Termite Terminator has more future potential to make more positive changes to the world (see: Future).
Collaborate
An important but sometimes underestimated part of iGEM is the applicability of the created product. Collaboration with Synenergene helped us to think beyond the scientific possibilities of our project and place it in a social framework. We think deeply about more aspects throughout the project. The answers to these questions were all considered and combined in the application scenario where we explore how our product is going to be used and produced and the challenges involved. Additionally, we presented Techno-moral vignettes, focusing on the potential wider impacts of our application (see: Synenergene).
This year, we helped H4Z (Hangzhou No.4 Highschool)to get started in iGEM, helped HZAU with modeling and provided BNU with two important gene circuits. In Jul 19-24, we attended in the Asian Conference in the National Chiao Tung University (see: Collaborate).
This year, ZJU-CHINA attaches much more importance on Human Practice. The theme is INFLUENCE. We focus on the influence of our project: how could it perfectly interact with the world. We focus on the influence of synthetic biology: a series of public promotion has been made to develop public recognition of synthetic biology and safety issues. We focus on the influence of a vital principle: from nature for nature. In the process of Human practice, we tried our best to interact with the world, appreciate nature and thus improve our project.
