Preparing for iGEM 2006
From 2006.igem.org
Contents |
Team Leaders
- Announce: Announce your participation in iGEM early and widely with your peers. You are on the leading edge of an exciting event that is rapidly growing and gaining global recognition.
- Advertise and recruit: Begin recruitment well before the spring term ends. Promote and advertise widely on campus. You are likely to get a surprising number of applications. Assembling a diverse team will bring new perspectives to the task of engineering biological systems.
- Undergraduates: Try to field a mostly undergraduate team. You will be surprised at how much they can do in so short a time. (They don't know what is impossible, yet!)
- Instructors: Find two instructors for the team. The summer is long and a single instructor may not be able to spend the whole summer supporting the team. Besides, it will be more fun. The instructors get as much from the summer as the students do.
- Workspace: Consider the workspace available to your team. A space large enough to permit them to gather and work together side by side will lead to a better team experience.
- Motivation: What is your motivation for participation? What do you expect from your team? Understanding what you hope to accomplish by competing in iGEM will help set the tone of the team you build.
- Teacher's Conference: Select a representative to attend the iGEM teachers conference in May. This is an important choice: this person will disseminate the information from the conference and is expected to act as a front line resource person for the team. Choose someone that has the free time to support the students and is considered approachable.
- Wikis: Familiarize yourself with the iGEM and [http://openwetware.org OpenWetWare] (OWW) wikis. Information sharing is central to iGEM, and this year we are requiring more use of the iGEM wiki. Simple text image manipulation is easy enough, but more complex, graphical layouts require some experimentation and effort. Some teams also create their own wikis and external sites to augment the iGEM wiki. (For an example, see the Cambridge team's [http://syntheticbiology.co.uk site].) It is not sufficient that only external sites be used.
- What to Wiki: We encourage creative wiki-ing! However, we would like to distill meaningful summaries at the end of the competition. To facilitate this, we are advising that the following information be included on each team's wiki:
- A list of all team members, their roles, and email addresses
- Overview of project(s), including schematics and figures
- Ongoing data/updates about project(s), including schematics, figures, test data, and biobrick parts used
- Some photos of your team, facilities, institution, etc.
- Optionally, anything that broadcasts your team's personality, spirit, sense of fun, or coolness...
- Parts registry: The [http://parts2.mit.edu/ parts registry] is a core tool of the iGEM program and worth the effort to experiment with sooner than later.
Note: Development work is continuing on parts registry and a new version will launch before iGEM begins, complete with new features, data cleanup, and more complete documentation. This work will be completed before the teachers conference in May.
- Project Planning: It's never too early to start thinking about what to make.
- Journal Clubs: Excellent for getting the teams to think about technical issues and develop presentation skills. And getting pizzas delivered.
- Fundraising: iGEM participation can require considerable financial support. Think about which organizations or groups might be willing to sponsor your team. Don't overlook the support of other departments at your institution. Make a list. When your team is assembled, consider writing letters requesting their help. You may want to have students host a talk outlining their projects and interests, which will help polish those presentation skills.
- Media The media is interested in projects like iGEM that involve teams of young people and new, exciting technologies. iGEM is receiving more attention each year. Former projects are even appearing in peer reviewed articles in top journals. Media exposure will help teams take their work seriously, increase sponsorship and grant support, attract new talent, and more. You should consult with your institution's media office about contacting campus papers, local newspapers, and television.
Students
Benefits of Participation
iGEM is an opportunity to gain practical experience in collaborative scientific research in a casual yet supportive environment. A few of the benefits reported by former iGEMers include:
- Chance to do self-directed, original research, not just menial summer work
- Experience in competitive science, but in a friendly and supportive environment
- Use of leading edge tools and methods towards practical applications
- Problem solving skill development
- Chance to interact with supervisors
- Opportunity to improve written and verbal presentation skills
- Inclusion in an international peer network
Papers to Read
Research Papers in Synthetic Biology
Mathematical Modeling in Synthetic Biology
General
A lot of [http://openwetware.org/wiki/Synthetic_Biology:BioBricks useful information on BioBricks] is available on OpenWetWare.
