Gold: Meeting of minds

Human Practice is necessary for the birth of a project, also, what we did should be back to human practice. With such idea, we extracted inspiration from investigation and interviews, and designed our Bio101, besides, Bio2048. To summary how we connected our project with more people, especially targeted groups, and integrated their thoughts, we drew the following picture.

Fig.1.Bi-directional influence between our projects and human practice.

HUMAN PRACTICES: INSPIRATION OF BIO101

Miraculous Brightness：First Lecture in Puyang Middle School

Before we chose the theme of our project, we considered to take some actions to seek inspiration. We held a lecture with UESTC-China in Puyang Middle High School. We introduced synthetic biology with some well-known examples at first. Then, it was time for the students to build their own plasmids. They added the functional genes like Bioluminescence gene into the plasmids, which enlightened us that DNA could carry the information of biological characteristics they wanted to realize. Along this start, we put forward that if we could utilize DNA to store some information besides biology. That was the beginning of exploring the DNA information storage.

Fig.2.We built the plasmids together.

Absorb Inspiration: Man-on-the-street Interview

We got an idea, and more, we wanted to think based on the public, for the final software achievement will return to life. We did man-on-the-street interviews, from campus to market. We asked people that what features storage tools were asked to possess and how did they think for using DNA to store information. We received much useful information from the communication. A young man’s opinion left the deepest impression on us: he nearly had higher expectation for the storage capacity, equipment volume and storage speed. He had special interest in our project and gave us great help to decide the property and function of software.

Fig.3.The interview about Bio101.

BIO101: FEEDBACK TO HUMAN

To children and their parents: To Be Scientist Tomorrow

When we completed Bio101, the first idea we thought is to give feedback to the public, so we held an activity, “To Be Scientists Tomorrow”. We invited children and their parents, and then told them some knowledge about DNA storage, also showed our storage system. They were very active and said that they wanted the files would not be lost.

Fig.4.A girl imagination about Bio101.

To Other Participants: iGEM Southwest China Union

We knew that for iGEM, share and collaboration is one of cores. We met and discussed in iGEM Southwest China Union. The participants not only focused on software functions, but also were curious about the algorithms. During the communication, they gave suggestions about the development of software performance from a professional view.

Fig.5.Our presentation in iSWU.

HUMAN PRACTICES: INVESTIGATION FOR BIO2048

During our interviews, we found that some people were really unfamiliar with biology conceptions. Therefore, we attached some importance to this term. Some people said that they had few channel to touch biology with interest. Since then, we wanted to build a bridge between the public and biology, so we wanted to create a new mobile phone game called Bio2048 to realize the true edutainment.

BIO2048: EDUTAINMENT FOR HUMAN

During the online popularization, we uploaded it to Tencent Application to make convenient for people to download and start their trip to biology. Otherwise, we opened a Sina’s Microblog to push our project progress and it has already attracted 1034 fans. Many people made comments after trying, and most said that the game was attractive for the combination of knowledge and enjoyment.

As for offline work, we introduced our outcome to students and teachers who are glad to help us access application in class. We found that students especially in primary and middle school are extremely interested in the way to understand new conceptions. Teachers are surprised to see it isn’t only a kind of edutainment but also integration of math and biology.

Fig.6.A foreign friend played Bio2048.

Passers-by also could try our game, for we organized on-the-street game try, during which a foreign friend expressed great interests about our game and provided some advice. At the same time, we made questionnaires to players that if they still thought biology was boring. The consequence was encouraging.

Fig.6.The public’s attitude changed after our effort.

We did Human Practices to practice our thoughts and get inspirations. Surprisingly, we found the effects are bi-directional. What we did are mutually beneficial and win-win.