Difference between revisions of "Team:Mingdao/Breathelyzer test"

In our school, the majority of people think of iGEM as a group of mysterious people working in the lab all day long and trying to bring changes to this world. Today, we disclosed the mystery of iGEM 2016 by inviting some of the teachers from our school and introducing them to iGEM and our project. The activity started off with a few of the iGEM members introducing our project for 2016 iGEM competition. Later on, we were glad to have a police officer here to tell us some of the important knowledge towards the everyday traffic and laws that deal with the traffic accidents. At the end of the activity, the invited teachers drank a bottle of beer and then took the breath alcohol test. Many of the teachers experienced for the first time the actual breath alcohol test. We found out that everyone had different perspectives towards the accuracy of breathalyzers. One of teachers said that breathalyzers aren’t accurate because the testing result appeared to be stunningly low after he drank two bottles of beer. After hearing everyone’s opinions, we knew how we could improve our project design. In addition, we gained a lot of priceless encouragements that help us become a stronger iGEM team.

Twenty-two volunteers of teachers and the principal were involved in the test. They drank a whole bottle of beer (300ml) containing 4.5% alcohol. They took two measures of the breathalyzer test 1 min and 10 min after drinking. The data showed the dramatic variation of alcohol concentrations from the breath. The reason may be caused by individual metabolic difference. The result is consistent with our hypothesis and research. And this will help us to design our product.