Team:Aachen/Integrated Practices
Integrated Practices
We have also taken into account the needs and thoughts of the public to improve our project.
Dark Bench
Idea
Our project forced us to grapple with the inconvenience of having to handle chemicals that are destroyed, when exposed to too much light. The laboratory, that was kindly made available for us, is located in a building with a glass front and many people work there with us. Working protected from light without causing us or others inconveniences seemed impossible. That is how the idea for the “Dark Bench” emerged.
The most important questions we asked ourselves and others working with light sensitive materials were: Does our design really constitute an advantage opposed to the usual solutions like aluminum foil and cardboard? And: Can we make it affordable?
Design
The Dark bench is a light controlled space which facilitates the handling of the photo-sensitive caged amino acids. It is entirely made using laser-cut parts and readily available resources to make it a Do-It-Yourself and inexpensive device. As all the parts are assembled with help of angles and hinges, the Dark bench can be dismantled and assembled with little effort.
It´s features comprise:
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Click here for detailed information regarding Dark Bench.
Cost Calculation
That was Dr. Mishlers concern, when he gave us some feedback to the design of our model. At first he seemed to be interested in our Hardware part, but was skeptical if having the advantages would be worth the price. We estimated the costs to build one darkbench at about 200 $.
Detailed calculation.
| Component | Specifications | Quantity | Costs* [€/piece] |
Costs* [$/piece] |
Final* [€] |
Final* [$] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opaque plexiglas 4mm | 50X100 cm | 5 | 22.45 | 24.63 | 112.25 | 123.15 |
| Transparent plexiglas 3mm | 25X50 cm | 1 | 7.5 | 8.23 | 7.5 | 8.23 |
| Screws | M3X10 | 155 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 7.75 | 7.75 |
| Screws | M3X16 | 10 | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.8 | 0.9 |
| Screws | M3X20 | 25 | 0.09 | 0.10 | 2.25 | 2.5 |
| Washer | 3.2mm | 200 | 0.02 | 0.02 | 4 | 4 |
| Angles | 3X3X3cm | 18 | 0.41 | 0.45 | 7.38 | 8.1 |
| Hinges | 4X2.5cm | 18 | 0.82 | 0.90 | 14.76 | 16.2 |
| Door Knob | - | 1 | 2.39 | 2.62 | 2.39 | 2.62 |
| Long sleeve gloves | - | 1 | 1.69 | 1.85 | 1.69 | 1.85 |
| Adhesive | - | 1 | 1.05 | 1.15 | 1.05 | 1.15 |
| Cable ties and Mounts | 1.9X1.9cm | 1 | 2.29 | 2.51 | 2.29 | 2.51 |
| Foam Rubber sheet 3mm | 10X60cm | 1 | 1.13 | 1.24 | 1.13 | 1.24 |
| Foam rubber Sheet 6mm | 30X30cm | 1 | 1.71 | 1.88 | 1.71 | 1.88 |
| Plastic Sheet | 50X100cm | 1 | 1.25 | 1.37 | 1.25 | 1.37 |
| UV foil | blocks λ<540 nm, 50X30cm |
1 | 3.87 | 4.25 | 3.87 | 4.25 |
| Neodymium cube magnets | 4X4X4mm | 2 | 0.29 | 0.32 | 0.58 | 0.64 |
| LED Strips | 625 nm, 150 cm, 12V, 2.7W |
1 | 1.47 | 1.61 | 1.47 | 1.61 |
| Regulated Power Supply | 12V, 600mA | 1 | 9.35 | 10.26 | 9.35 | 10.26 |
| Switch | 1A | 1 | 1 | 1.10 | 1 | 1.10 |
| Total* | 184.47 | 202.37 |
Assembly
| LIPs Stick Steps to build your own LIPs Stick |
Conclusion
We are very content with the design of our “Dark Bench”. We think it is convenient to work with and can help avoid production of unnecessary waste.
The manual for building the “Dark Bench” can be downloaded here.
Light Tool
The Public Opinion
Our project deals with light inducible proteases and aims to ban the substance of boric acid out of liquid washing detergents. At first that sounded very nice. Activating protease and controlling their activity with of light, banning a harmful substance and creating a washing detergent that is as effective, but with less environmental impacts. But we also had to think about the consumers who would use our modified protease in their daily life.
Everybody has to wash their clothes, so in order to find out what the public thinks we started an online survey. It was designed to gather information about, whether our future product would find acceptance in the public and how we can design it in the most attractive way. From the derived information, we draw the following conclusion
Detailed Analysis of the Online Survey
More than half of the people said that their knowledge about biology influences their consumer behavior. Even more indicate that they read the ingredients list of products before buying. But anyways 57% of them do not pay attention on harmful substances in cleaning products.
When giving a selection of chemicals included in washing detergents and asking about which those surveyed would categorize as harmful only 36% chose boric acid as risky ingredient.
After that we included a short informative text about what the ECHA has classified boric acid as and asked how much sense it would make to replace it on a scale from 1 (not useful) to 5 (very useful). The average here was 4.27.
A majority of more than 80% are in general willing to pay more for a safer alternative, as provided in our project and furthermore, 60% to accept a longer washing process of about 20 minutes or more.
Integration of Our Findings into the Design of Our Project
Education about synthetic biology and environmental effects of everyday products is not very widespread in our country. The survey reveals that the ingredients list plays an important role for costumers. Nevertheless, chemicals like boric acid are not declared although they can have a harmful effect on the user. Therefore, we saw a need to educate the public about what consequences their consumption has for the world around them. We hope we achieved this at all the events where we introduced our concerns and solution approaches.
We were happy to see that the majority of people (79.5 %), after being informed about the harms of the ingredients, is interested in a product without boric acid.
The most important aspect we wanted to examine is the acceptableness of the activation step our product would add to the washing process. 4.1 % of those surveyed would just accept up to 5 minutes of prolongation, 24.6 % up to 10 and 42.6 % up to 20 minutes. So we decided to develop an “uncaging device” that could activate the protease in the most convenient way. With our device the washing process will just be expanded about 5-10 minutes, dependent on the amount of washing detergent that is used. This meets the request of at least 87.2% of the respondents. In the long term, we would like to develop a device that is even more effective, automatic and directly attached to the washing machine to eliminate any inconvenience.
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93.1 % of those surveyed, are willing to pay more for a product without boric acid.
If the price of the final laundry detergent would increase cannot be predicted by us yet, though. Since non-canonical amino acids are not used in large scale production of enzymes, the costs are difficult to predict. What we can say until now is that the protection group is a more complicated molecule and the synthesis is more expensive than boric acid. Nevertheless, there will be much less needed and so the total costs of the laundry detergent would not differ or could even decrease.
In conclusion, we believe that our design would meet the needs of the average washing detergents user.
