Team:Newcastle/Design

We began with the concept - a modular system that would facilitate and explain our research by providing an easy-to-assemble kit suitable for demonstrations to students of high school age and illustrate the link between electronics and biology.

To start, we drafted up some initial designs that used press-together studs as their connection/conduction mechanism, inspired by the John Adams ‘Hot Wires’ kits and other such ‘easy-build’ systems. We also reached out to John Adams for the features that make their products so successful within their target demographic.

These products are usually designed to explore and support ideas already present in the national curriculum – obviously with our project we are hoping to explore completely new ground for the end users, as synthetic biology receives little to no mention before the final year of A levels in the UK, at age 17/18. Aside from this, attractive packaging for store appeal and targeted advertising on children’s TV raise awareness and create pester power. Above all, it was stressed that due to the growing array of toy safety requirements, science-based products are becoming more expensive to develop, which can restrict movement into particular areas of science. This was something we really had to consider – given the controversial nature of GM organisms and handling of bacteria, we had to make our system as safe as possible.

We then gave a presentation on iGEM and our project within it to groups of sixth form students across two open days, presenting our ideas as well as the Hot Wires kits along with two other variants and asked them for feedback on the products. We wanted to establish what they liked and features that could be improved, recording this information and feeding into our design rationale. Use of bright colours and clear labelling was praised, while the snap-together studs were rejected as too fiddly - it was this observation that made us decide to pursue a magnetised system, using coloured perspex to keep the kit visually stimulating.

We wanted to produce a series of interchangeable parts that could house the hardwire required to activate the heat shock response in our microfluidic chambers, and also be as aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly as possible. This would allow for easy experiment preparation and consistency in any observations, as we would include all lasercut and 3D model designs for free.

In keeping with our previous stud-based design, we opted to use a series of nodes attached to bases, which were themselves magnetised. This meant that depending on the circuits they wished to build the bases could be rearranged in space, with strong connections between segments to ensure stability. All connector pieces and components used the same form factor based on these small-but-powerful round magnets which guarantee stable conduction. Copper tape was soldered to each magnet and used to conduct across plastic connector pieces.

In testing, it transpired that while the magnetic nodes were visually appealing, due to small manufacturing inconsistencies we could not always get the stable connection we needed to deliver the electricity for heat shock. From this realisation, the final iteration of the design was born.

Now we are using 8mm neodymium disc magnets for our design, which are powerful but most importantly completely smooth, with the copper-magnet join taking place away from the connection surface. Finally we had achieved the perfect current delivery method, and adapted all our pre-existing models and diagrams to incorporate the magnets.

During our experiments we had been using a Bio-Rad PowerPac Basic to supply electricity. Given the short time available to us we would have liked to develop our own variable PSU design, but for now we have opted to make adapters that will allow multiple types of bench supply to work with our breadboard system, which are included in the kit.

Of course, we intended from the beginning for our designs to be freely available and modifed - we have included a thumb drive with every single lasercutting profile and 3D model required to build your own kits, along with the relevant documentation. These files are also downloadable from on this wiki at the link HERE. We’d love to see what new parts you can come up with and integrate into the system - as the field of synthetic biology evolves, so can the system.