Team:CityU HK/Game

Results - iGEM2015 wiki

Introduction

Who says ‘Fun’ and 'Science' cannot be combined? With a view to educating people about the controversial issues surrounding synthetic biology, allaying the fears this new field has generated, and breaking the myth that science is not fun, the CityU iGEM team specially designed 2 interactive games to engage members of the general public in the fun of science. It is hoped that active participation by the public in learning through games about synthetic biology and our iGEM project would be an effective means to promote synthetic biology to the public. The two games we designed are described below.

BYO Bio-brick

This game is designed to engage the community in the world of synthetic biology. Participants are provided with daily life situations.Based on the situation assigned, participants are required to carefully choose the relevant 'Bio-bricks' to construct a gene cassette to achieve a specific biological aim. The game allows the general public to construct their own custom-designed bacteria (biological machine) equipped with desired functions. Guidance was provided during the course of the game to help the participants understand the concept of a biobrick while having fun.

Aims:

To educate the general public about synthetic biology through a stimulating and interactive game.

Instruction

1) Participants are given a stack of cards.Each card is labeled with a component in a biobrick.

2) Short anecdotes about daily life situations are provided as context for participants to construct the gene cassette of interest.

3) Participants are asked to assemble different Bio-bricks in a specific sequence in order to express the genes in the cassette.

Think it is too easy to play?

Take up our challenge and solve the puzzle of synthetic biology

Break Lac – Introduction on our board game

For us, dairy products are an essential part of our diet. In this board game, the main character is unaware that he suffers from lactose intolerance. He has the habit of drinking a glass of milk daily.

The four players are special cells with limited ability to digest lactose, and are responsible to help them break down the lactose he introduces into the intestine before he experiences diarrhea. CityU's iGEM project has introduced the main feature of the game so that the players can understand the concept of lactose intolerance.