Plasmid assembler - card game in collaboration with Swedish iGEM teams
The work process
During the Swedish iGEM conference at the end of June, some of us had an idea to make a collaborative project in the form of an educational board game. In July we had our first zoom meeting and participating were members from Lund, Linköping, Gothenburg, Stockholm and of course Uppsala. By the beginning of September we had the printable card game Plasmid assembler finished!
Education
When play-testing the game we have already encouraged learning about synthetic biology and iGEM to many people around us and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. By including Plasmid assembler on all of our team wikis with free, printable cards we hope many more will enjoy it in the future. We hope the game can encourage interest in the field and show how many different paths can be taken with synthetic biology.
Plasmid assembler - the game
Plasmid assembler is aimed at anyone that wants to play a fun card game and at the same time learn what synthetic biology could encompass. There is no need to be a synthetic biologist to play and this game has been play-tested with laymen. However, it is educational even if played by university students, so it really is designed with education in mind, no matter who plays it! The optimal number of players are between three and five so it can be played by a group of friends or printed in multiple copies and played with school classes. Feel free to look at the game description, print the cards, cut them out and start playing right away!
Lab help and presentation for high school students
At the start of the new school year, we assisted in a lab in synthetic biology for high school students visiting our university. During this visit, the students got to try out creating recombinant organisms by transforming plasmids containing chromoprotein genes into E.coli. By doing this, they learned some fundamental principles of synthetic biology and got to try out many common techniques, ranging from how to pipette, to heat shocking of cells and streaking of agar plates. As this was something completely new to many students, we were there as a support, helping them along and teaching them some tips and tricks we’ve picked up during the summer. We got the opportunity to present the work we’ve done in our project with chromoproteins and its significance to the students. We also talked about the field of synthetic biology as a whole and of course about iGEM.