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Medals and prizes

Bronze

Register the team, have a great summer, and plan to have fun at the Giant Jamboree.
Successfully complete and submit this iGEM 2015 Judging form.
Create and share a Description of the team's project using the iGEM wiki, and document the team's parts using the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.
Plan to present a Poster and Talk at the iGEM Jamboree.
Collaborate with another team or become a mentee for any iGEM team that has previously participated in the iGEM competition and is attending the 2015 Jamboree.
Register the team, have a great summer, and plan to have fun at the Giant Jamboree.

Sliver

Document at least one new standard BioBrick Part or Device central to your project and submit this part to the iGEM Registry (submissions must adhere to the iGEM Registry guidelines). You may also document a new application of a BioBrick part from a previous iGEM year, adding that documentation to the part's main page.
Document the characterization of an existing part in the Main Page section of that Part's/Device's Registry entry. This part can come from the 2015 Distribution, or you can order a part from the Registry.
iGEM projects involve important questions beyond the bench, for example relating to (but not limited to) ethics, sustainability, social justice, safety, security, and intellectual property rights. We refer to these activities as Human Practices in iGEM. Demonstrate how your team has identified, investigated and addressed one or more of these issues in the context of your project.

Gold

Choose one of these two options: (1) Expand on your silver medal Human Practices activity by demonstrating how you have integrated the investigated issues into the design and/or execution of your project. OR (2) Demonstrate an innovative Human Practices activity that relates to your project (this typically involves educational, public engagement, and/or public perception activities; see the Human Practices Hub for information and examples of innovative activities from previous teams).
Help an iGEM team from another school or institution to meet a specific experimental or modeling goal by, for example, characterizing their part, debugging their construct, or modeling or simulating their system.
Experimentally validate that at least one new BioBrick Part or Device of your own design and construction works as expected. Document the characterization of this part in the Main Page section of the Registry entry for that Part/Device. This working part must be different from the part you documented in Silver medal criterion #1.
Demonstrate a functional prototype of your project. Your prototype can derive from a previous project (that was not demonstrated to work) by your team or by another team. Show this system working under real-world conditions that you simulate in the lab. (Remember, biological materials may not be taken outside the lab.)

Best Education & public engagement

Did the team demonstrate an innovative educational synthetic biology tool/activity?

SKLBC-GDSYZX has developed a synthetic tool called Synsketch.Synsketch can help people design standardized genetic circuits and better understand the experimental principle.So we carry out a serious of educational activities which are based on Synsketch to help promote synthetic biology.Now we are focus on developing Synsketch into an advanced education system.

Was a dialogue about synthetic biology established between the team and the public?

SKLBC-GDSYZX has carried out many online and offline promotional activities.We cooperate with our school and some other educational organizations to popularize synthetic biology.Our Synsketch education system teaches high school students and university students knowledge about synthetic biology through offline meetings, tutorials and TEDx lectures.Which established a dialogue about synthetic biology between our team and the public.

How much did the team accomplish through their HP efforts?

SKLBC-GDSYZX has successfully held several educational activities( offline meetings, tutorials and TEDx lectures) by now.For example,on May.29th in 2015,our school held the Science Festival,and our team took part in it.We divided in two groups so as to popularize iGEM in two different ways.One group focused on creating a pack of cards which was based on synthetic knowledge.We aimed to popularize iGEM as well as teach people some basic knowledge about synthetic.Except cards,we also held a prize-giving quiz.The other group focused on shooting a micro video that introduced some interesting knowledge about biology.Our promotional activity was quite successful,we attracted many students and teachers to know more about synthetic biology.

Is the tool/activity reusable by other teams, educators, and engagers?

Yes.Synsketch is a free and open online tool.Our source code is open to the public.Everyone can visit our website and view our source code.And all the source materials in Synsketch are open.Other teams can browse and edit all our genetic circuits.Besides,our Synsketch system is a standardized and reusable education system.We will write a tutorial about our education system to help educators better understand our activities.Also all of our activities can be launched in most of the high schools,colleges and educational organizations.So both our Synsketch tools and Synsketch education system are reusable by other teams,educators,and engagers.

Did the team learn from the interaction with the public?

Yes.Through the interaction with the public especially with students,we know about the public’s interests on synthetic biology and how much do they know.These data may help us perfect our promotion work in the future.Besides,we also learn about the problems that other iGEM team meet,and we think of how to further improve our project to help them solve the problems.More importantly,interaction help us know more about the market requirement and gap.Therefore we can develop a viable business model.

Best software tool

What was the overall quality of the tool?

Our cloud-based tool--Synsketch has three main functions:genetic circuit designing,saving and sharing,editing.These three main functions may help synthetic biology lovers design a standardized genetic circuit easily and efficiently.It has three features:standardization,adaptation and interaction.With other additional functions like personal account, multi-language interface and well-classified tags, Synsketch is able to inspire scientific curiosity among the public.

Has the team built a software tool that people would find useful?

Yes.We develop a cloud-based tool-- Synsketch-- to help people design a standardized genetic circuit easily and efficiently.Synsketch is easy to learn, modify and share,therefore it can help people to save lots of time creating a standardized genetic circuit.We have done a survey on how long it takes iGEMers to design a genetic circuit.And the answer was 30 minute on average.However,with Synsketch,people can design a genetic circuit within 15minutes.Synsketch helps people save time as well as draw standardized genetic circuit. So people will find it very useful.

Is the software well designed for a synthetic biologist?

Yes.We began to develop Synsketch because genetic circuits play a significant role in synthetic experiment,however, the diversity in styles of circuits not only hinders learners of synthetic biology, but also costs synthetic biologist lots of time to complete a standardized genetic circuits by using the current graphic design tool.So we design a software tool called Synsketch.Synsketch is a standardized software tool especially for synthetic biologists,so it can help synthetic biologists save lots of time creating a standardized genetic circuit.

Can I understand the documentation?
Would a non-technical person understand the software?

Yes.Synsketch is really easy to use.If a person want to use Synsketch to design a genetic circuit,he or she needn’t to be technical.He or she just need to click the element(For example:RBS) and then drag it to a proper place.After combining all the elements in a picture,a genetic circuit is finished.Besides,for those who begin to use Synsketch for the first time,we have prepared an illustrated course to help them understand Synsketch quickly.

Would a software developer want to use this as a platform for more work?

Yes.Synsketch provides a platform for people to communicate with each other.People can use Synsketch not only to design,share,and edit genetic circuits, but also to join Synsketch community.Our Synsketch website has functions of creating personal account,selecting languages,reading books and watching videos, and communicating with others.Synsketch has wide development space.For its further development,we decide to make Synsketch become a free App.We will combine and develop all the existing functions and add more new functions to Synsketch.We welcome software developers to give us some useful advice as well as use Synsketch as a platform for more work.

How well is the software using and supporting existing synthetic biology standards and platforms?

Synsketch is a tool for standardization.We create Synsketch on the purpose of using and supporting existing synthetic biology standards.Synsketch provide a standardized model for people to design genetic circuits both quickly and efficiently.If Synsketch is successfully promoted among iGEM community,we will get unified visual effect.That will strengthen synthetic biology standards.For synthetic biology platforms,we build up Synsketch community.Synthetic biology lovers can use our Synsketch community as a platform to show their discoveries as well as communicate about their problems.In conclusion,Synsketch tool and Synsketch community effectively use and support exist synthetic biology standards and platforms.

Was this software validated by experimental work?

Yes.

Did the team use non-trivial algorithms or designs?

Yes.

How easily can others embed this software in new workflows?

Synsketch is easy for a green hand to learn.Because Synsketch is a standardized software tool and all its elements are unified,it can well adapt to different workflows.People can quickly understand how to use Synsketch and then use it to design genetic circuit effectively.Synsketch help people save more time,and make them fit in with new workflows easily.

How user-friendly is the software?

Synsketch is user-friendly because it is really easy to learn and easy to use.And it can help people design a genetic circuit and save a lot of time at the same time .Besides, the powerful language library will help users to overcome the language barrier and provide users with better understanding of those academic papers. And the site map will offer a clear navigation for users and make even those who use the website for the first time to sign up and look for information easily.

Best entrepreneurship

Customer Discovery - Has the team interviewed a representative number of potential customers for the technology and clearly communicated what they learned?

The Synsketch is aimed to help university students who participate in IGEM competition or those who have the basic knowledge about synthetic biology and hope to design a genetic circuit within minutes. In order to understand the needs and problems of the target customers, SKLBC-GDSYZX team held a science festival in Guangdong Experimental High School and had a meet-up session with the other four teams from Sunyatsen University and South China University of Technology. During meet-up session, our team introduces the project and listens to other teams’ projects and their problems during the experiment process. Most importantly, our team interviewed a student from South China University of Technology and discussed the difficulties they had during preparation for iGEM competition. It was obvious that experiment teams and software teams should establish a close relationship and that our project will help experiment teams solve some current problems and satisfy their needs.

Based on their interviews, does the team have a clear hypothesis describing their customers’ needs?

According to the interviewees, there are three learning periods: basic teaching which requires a time-saving tool that is easy to learn and to use, learning engine that needs a good interaction between users and the software so as to offer more chances to explore potential possibility of the work, and automatic learning in great request of a model to reach a well-spread standardization. Although some of the current graphic-design tools such as Photoshop are efficient, they do not have a certain standard, therefore leading to a confusing visual effect for both judges and iGEM learners to go through the various genetic circuits in different projects. And other tools are too difficult to learn. The student interviewee complained that her team had to incorporate several students major in design and computer science to help them deal with the design of the genetic circuits and that even those professional students had to spend about a month to fully master the use of some graphic-design tools like Adobe Illustrator. During the interviews, the student said that due to the lack of time, method and good interaction, iGEMers are often in great need of a standardized, interactive, systematic synthetic biology learning software.

Does the team present a convincing case that their product meets the customers’ needs?

Based on the interviews, our team has learned that there are three periods during learning: the first is basic teaching, which requires a certain amount of time. With Synsketch, users don’t need to start from lines when they want to design the genetic circuits for experiment. Just chose the design elements they want and then drag it to a suitable place, so that a standardized picture is completed. Also, if users make a mistake, not like other tools as Photoshop, Synsketch is available for them to revise their genetic circuits both quickly and accurately. And Synsketch is easy to learn and it takes only a time to make a cup of coffee to get the mastery of it, therefore saving lots of time in the basic teaching period.

The second period, learning engine period, calls for a good interaction. Users can easily interact with Synsketch by applying the software to learn more about synthetic biology parts involved in the experiment. And Synskecth also establishes a good connection within the whole iGEM community. As user finishes his genetic circuit online, a QR code is generated and he can share it to his friends by scanning the QR code. And he can also store the diagrams in his wechat ID and share them through wechat, one of the most pervasive social tools in China with more than 549million users per month. User can still upload the data to the website, a cloud base. Through the cloud data base, IGEMers are also able to communicate with each other.

As the third period, automatic learning requires a tool to enable standardization. Looking through the genetic circuits of previous projects, we find that they are not uniform: some are too complex, some are too simple, and some are incomplete...However, Synsketch is a standardized tool that helps iGEMers design draw clear and unified genetic circuits for experiment. For the future aspect, if every iGEM team can use Synsketch to design genetic circuits, we will get a unified visual effect and can understand all the experimental principle easily.

Has the team demonstrated a minimum viable (MVP) product and had customers to commit (LOI, etc.) to purchasing it / using it?

As for a minimum viable product, our team chooses to first implement online advertising, which almost costs no extra spending at all since the website has already completed and accumulated a certain amount of users. For the future aspect, we are planning to arrange more offline activities such as the lectures or teaching session in high schools and universities, therefore expanding the public influence and inspiring more public interest about synthetic biology. And such activities will also be economic since our team has already established a close cooperation with many schools such as Guangdong Experimental High School and Sunyatsen University.

For the sponsors, our teams attracts the attention of many education agencies to invest because the user base for Synsketch is mainly students who have an interest in synthetic biology and most of them hope to carry on further study abroad. So up till now, we have received 40000RMB from EIC and 15000RMB from APP, both education agencies that are attracted by the potential user base. And our goal is to get 200,000RMB investment in the future.

And many iGEM teams have already applied to Synsketch with their genetic circuits. With the cooperation of SKLBC-China team, many wechat users have signed in as the user of our website and stored completed genetic circuits in their personal account.

Does the team have a viable and understood business model/value proposition to take their company to market?

Our team has already come up with a viable and understandable business model—a circle among ourselves, biology learners and the sponsors.

Firstly, the team can use the project and some online advertisement to attract investment and use the investment to arrange offline activities to inspire interest of synthetic biology among the public, which is of great educational and scientific significance. We also collaborate with the founder of one-kilogram-box and spend 40% of the investment on the product. So far, we have just delivered 550 boxes to many high schools and universities, helping more students to learn about iGEM and synthetic biology. In the business circle, our team plays a role as the connecting part between customers and sponsors.

Secondly, the sponsors will also benefit in the business model for they can attract more customers on the online advertisements and get their potential customers during the offline activities. Since a big proportion of the users of Synsketch are students who may have the plan to study abroad, most of the sponsors are education agencies and they can get their customers from those who often view the website. And they can also get more potential customers during some lectures and other public activities for biology learners.

Thirdly, the public will also take full advantage in the circle. They can get access to a more convenient standardized software for genetic circuits and can also learn more about synthetic biology through offline activities.

As mentioned above, there is a virtuous circle with lots of benefits for every part of the circle. And since every part can benefit from the business model, it will carry on and expand to a larger and larger range and pose more and more important influence to the whole iGEM community and even the whole society.

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