Team:BrownStanfordPrinctn/Public Engagement
Although a busy summer in the lab, the Astropharmacy team got a little sun and had a fantastic time engaging with the public through various avenues. Closer to home, we mentored high schoolers and taught children about the basics of bioengineering. We reached a wider audience through our involvement in the Create the Future Design Contest and through collaboration with a film crew working on an upcoming documentary. From toddlers and high schoolers to scientists and the general public, we attempted to reach the largest swath of people as possible with the Astropharamcy as we believe the system itself has the capacity to benefit the whole globe. Read more about our non-lab adventures below!
Mountain View Technology Showcase
The Mountain View Technology Showcase is a yearly festival where local companies and start-ups display their new technologies and engage with older and younger residents alike. The event provided us with the opportunity to crowdsource ideas from festival-goers (the public never ceases to amaze in ingenuity) and connect with the larger entrepreneurial community of Silicon Valley.
However, the most rewarding aspect of the endeavor is that it gave us an opportunity to inspire and educate the next generation of bioengineers, who will have to solve problems facing humans on and off-planet in the near future. Any child that came by our booth was treated to a short lesson on the beauty and function of DNA, before we showed them how to extract the genetic material from a strawberry. Many Silicon Valley kids went home smiling, proud owners of octoploid DNA in a little test tube necklace; hopefully, they were spurred to explore the wonders of bioengineering.
Allison and Cameron teach about the wonders of synthetic biology.
Allison prepares strawberry DNA extraction for festival patrons.
Create the Future Design Contest
Our team was excited about the potential of the Astropharamcy from the onset, but we needed to see what other experts in the innovator community thought as well. Thus we decided to place our initial project plans and designs into consideration for the Sustainable Technologies division of the Create the Future contest. The competition was started in 2002 by the publishers of Tech Briefs, a monthly magazine NASA originally established to report novel technologies, in order to “help stimulate and reward engineering innovation”.
As a team, we thought this the perfect place to get the word out about the Astropharmacy as well as test our ideas against other world-changing ideas. The team was delighted to find out the larger engineering community thought our idea was as innovative and valuable to on and off-world healthcare as we did.
The Astropharmacy was determined to be one of 2019's top 100 entries by a panel of judges and also by popular vote ! Most impressively, the team also recieved an honorable mention under the sustainable technoligies category of the competition.
View our original entry here .
For the competition, the team also created a short video (thanks to the talented artist Arvind) to quickly explain the concept and purpose of the Astropharmacy to those unfamiliar to our project. The endeavor proved extremely useful later in summer at other public engagement events as it allowed a fun and efficient way to teach everyone from novices to experts what we were accomplishing in the lab.
iGEM Among the Stars: The Team Can Act Too
One day during the summer, the usually bustling Rothschild Lab at Ames was quieted down and refashioned into a movie set.
Dr. Rothschild was being interviewed for a future Five Deeps Expedition Documentary, about the wonders and scientific potential of exploring the deepest point on Earth, which will air on the Discovery Channel. After Atlantic Productions turned the lab into a studio, the director picked out Allison and Dominique and their stars for the day!
It was an excellent experience, not only to let our hair down to collaborate with the artistic community but also be a part of engaging the public in scientific exploration. There is no better medium than television to reach a wide audience!
Allison, Dominique, and Dr. Rothschild on the set in the laboratory.
High School Mentorship
This summer the team also had the wonderful opportunity to have a high-school student passionate about synthetic biology, and all things iGEM, embedded in our team for two weeks. Gordon Harrup spent time brainstorming, helping designing preliminary microfluidic devices, assisting the team in administrative duties, and learning at every moment. The chance to make a big difference and fuel the fire of one student’s love of bioengineering and synthetic biology was a chance at which the entire team jumped.
Gordon helpng out at the Mt. View Tech Fest.
Connecting With the NASA Community
While our presentations to and discussions with NASA administrators were instrumental in crafting our project for the institution's goal of reaching beyond Earth, the Astropharmcy team also got to connect with other Ames scientists, engineers, and fellow interns throughout the summer! We are all, after all, working towards the same goal of making life better on Earth and off. Particular highlights of the team's summer included touring the wind tunnel and the Vertical Motion Simulator on Ames campus with the rest of the intern community, as well as attending various networking events with other researchers at Moffet Field. The Astropharamcy will not exist in a bubble, and the ability to learn what others were doing (and vice versa) in order to help humanity explore the solar system was vital in how we saw our project fit into the larger mission plan.
Touring the largest wind tunnel in the world!
The Mountain View Technology Showcase is a yearly festival where local companies and start-ups display their new technologies and engage with older and younger residents alike. The event provided us with the opportunity to crowdsource ideas from festival-goers (the public never ceases to amaze in ingenuity) and connect with the larger entrepreneurial community of Silicon Valley.
However, the most rewarding aspect of the endeavor is that it gave us an opportunity to inspire and educate the next generation of bioengineers, who will have to solve problems facing humans on and off-planet in the near future. Any child that came by our booth was treated to a short lesson on the beauty and function of DNA, before we showed them how to extract the genetic material from a strawberry. Many Silicon Valley kids went home smiling, proud owners of octoploid DNA in a little test tube necklace; hopefully, they were spurred to explore the wonders of bioengineering.
Allison and Cameron teach about the wonders of synthetic biology.
Allison prepares strawberry DNA extraction for festival patrons.
Create the Future Design Contest
Our team was excited about the potential of the Astropharamcy from the onset, but we needed to see what other experts in the innovator community thought as well. Thus we decided to place our initial project plans and designs into consideration for the Sustainable Technologies division of the Create the Future contest. The competition was started in 2002 by the publishers of Tech Briefs, a monthly magazine NASA originally established to report novel technologies, in order to “help stimulate and reward engineering innovation”.
As a team, we thought this the perfect place to get the word out about the Astropharmacy as well as test our ideas against other world-changing ideas. The team was delighted to find out the larger engineering community thought our idea was as innovative and valuable to on and off-world healthcare as we did.
The Astropharmacy was determined to be one of 2019's top 100 entries by a panel of judges and also by popular vote ! Most impressively, the team also recieved an honorable mention under the sustainable technoligies category of the competition.
View our original entry here .
For the competition, the team also created a short video (thanks to the talented artist Arvind) to quickly explain the concept and purpose of the Astropharmacy to those unfamiliar to our project. The endeavor proved extremely useful later in summer at other public engagement events as it allowed a fun and efficient way to teach everyone from novices to experts what we were accomplishing in the lab.
iGEM Among the Stars: The Team Can Act Too
One day during the summer, the usually bustling Rothschild Lab at Ames was quieted down and refashioned into a movie set.
Dr. Rothschild was being interviewed for a future Five Deeps Expedition Documentary, about the wonders and scientific potential of exploring the deepest point on Earth, which will air on the Discovery Channel. After Atlantic Productions turned the lab into a studio, the director picked out Allison and Dominique and their stars for the day!
It was an excellent experience, not only to let our hair down to collaborate with the artistic community but also be a part of engaging the public in scientific exploration. There is no better medium than television to reach a wide audience!
Allison, Dominique, and Dr. Rothschild on the set in the laboratory.
High School Mentorship
This summer the team also had the wonderful opportunity to have a high-school student passionate about synthetic biology, and all things iGEM, embedded in our team for two weeks. Gordon Harrup spent time brainstorming, helping designing preliminary microfluidic devices, assisting the team in administrative duties, and learning at every moment. The chance to make a big difference and fuel the fire of one student’s love of bioengineering and synthetic biology was a chance at which the entire team jumped.
Gordon helpng out at the Mt. View Tech Fest.
Connecting With the NASA Community
While our presentations to and discussions with NASA administrators were instrumental in crafting our project for the institution's goal of reaching beyond Earth, the Astropharmcy team also got to connect with other Ames scientists, engineers, and fellow interns throughout the summer! We are all, after all, working towards the same goal of making life better on Earth and off. Particular highlights of the team's summer included touring the wind tunnel and the Vertical Motion Simulator on Ames campus with the rest of the intern community, as well as attending various networking events with other researchers at Moffet Field. The Astropharamcy will not exist in a bubble, and the ability to learn what others were doing (and vice versa) in order to help humanity explore the solar system was vital in how we saw our project fit into the larger mission plan.
Touring the largest wind tunnel in the world!
Our team was excited about the potential of the Astropharamcy from the onset, but we needed to see what other experts in the innovator community thought as well. Thus we decided to place our initial project plans and designs into consideration for the Sustainable Technologies division of the Create the Future contest. The competition was started in 2002 by the publishers of Tech Briefs, a monthly magazine NASA originally established to report novel technologies, in order to “help stimulate and reward engineering innovation”.
As a team, we thought this the perfect place to get the word out about the Astropharmacy as well as test our ideas against other world-changing ideas. The team was delighted to find out the larger engineering community thought our idea was as innovative and valuable to on and off-world healthcare as we did.
The Astropharmacy was determined to be one of 2019's top 100 entries by a panel of judges and also by popular vote ! Most impressively, the team also recieved an honorable mention under the sustainable technoligies category of the competition.
View our original entry here .
For the competition, the team also created a short video (thanks to the talented artist Arvind) to quickly explain the concept and purpose of the Astropharmacy to those unfamiliar to our project. The endeavor proved extremely useful later in summer at other public engagement events as it allowed a fun and efficient way to teach everyone from novices to experts what we were accomplishing in the lab.
iGEM Among the Stars: The Team Can Act Too
One day during the summer, the usually bustling Rothschild Lab at Ames was quieted down and refashioned into a movie set.
Dr. Rothschild was being interviewed for a future Five Deeps Expedition Documentary, about the wonders and scientific potential of exploring the deepest point on Earth, which will air on the Discovery Channel. After Atlantic Productions turned the lab into a studio, the director picked out Allison and Dominique and their stars for the day!
It was an excellent experience, not only to let our hair down to collaborate with the artistic community but also be a part of engaging the public in scientific exploration. There is no better medium than television to reach a wide audience!
Allison, Dominique, and Dr. Rothschild on the set in the laboratory.
High School Mentorship
This summer the team also had the wonderful opportunity to have a high-school student passionate about synthetic biology, and all things iGEM, embedded in our team for two weeks. Gordon Harrup spent time brainstorming, helping designing preliminary microfluidic devices, assisting the team in administrative duties, and learning at every moment. The chance to make a big difference and fuel the fire of one student’s love of bioengineering and synthetic biology was a chance at which the entire team jumped.
Gordon helpng out at the Mt. View Tech Fest.
Connecting With the NASA Community
While our presentations to and discussions with NASA administrators were instrumental in crafting our project for the institution's goal of reaching beyond Earth, the Astropharmcy team also got to connect with other Ames scientists, engineers, and fellow interns throughout the summer! We are all, after all, working towards the same goal of making life better on Earth and off. Particular highlights of the team's summer included touring the wind tunnel and the Vertical Motion Simulator on Ames campus with the rest of the intern community, as well as attending various networking events with other researchers at Moffet Field. The Astropharamcy will not exist in a bubble, and the ability to learn what others were doing (and vice versa) in order to help humanity explore the solar system was vital in how we saw our project fit into the larger mission plan.
Touring the largest wind tunnel in the world!
One day during the summer, the usually bustling Rothschild Lab at Ames was quieted down and refashioned into a movie set.
Dr. Rothschild was being interviewed for a future Five Deeps Expedition Documentary, about the wonders and scientific potential of exploring the deepest point on Earth, which will air on the Discovery Channel. After Atlantic Productions turned the lab into a studio, the director picked out Allison and Dominique and their stars for the day!
It was an excellent experience, not only to let our hair down to collaborate with the artistic community but also be a part of engaging the public in scientific exploration. There is no better medium than television to reach a wide audience!
Allison, Dominique, and Dr. Rothschild on the set in the laboratory.
High School Mentorship
This summer the team also had the wonderful opportunity to have a high-school student passionate about synthetic biology, and all things iGEM, embedded in our team for two weeks. Gordon Harrup spent time brainstorming, helping designing preliminary microfluidic devices, assisting the team in administrative duties, and learning at every moment. The chance to make a big difference and fuel the fire of one student’s love of bioengineering and synthetic biology was a chance at which the entire team jumped.
Gordon helpng out at the Mt. View Tech Fest.
Connecting With the NASA Community
While our presentations to and discussions with NASA administrators were instrumental in crafting our project for the institution's goal of reaching beyond Earth, the Astropharmcy team also got to connect with other Ames scientists, engineers, and fellow interns throughout the summer! We are all, after all, working towards the same goal of making life better on Earth and off. Particular highlights of the team's summer included touring the wind tunnel and the Vertical Motion Simulator on Ames campus with the rest of the intern community, as well as attending various networking events with other researchers at Moffet Field. The Astropharamcy will not exist in a bubble, and the ability to learn what others were doing (and vice versa) in order to help humanity explore the solar system was vital in how we saw our project fit into the larger mission plan.
Touring the largest wind tunnel in the world!
This summer the team also had the wonderful opportunity to have a high-school student passionate about synthetic biology, and all things iGEM, embedded in our team for two weeks. Gordon Harrup spent time brainstorming, helping designing preliminary microfluidic devices, assisting the team in administrative duties, and learning at every moment. The chance to make a big difference and fuel the fire of one student’s love of bioengineering and synthetic biology was a chance at which the entire team jumped.
Gordon helpng out at the Mt. View Tech Fest.
Connecting With the NASA Community
While our presentations to and discussions with NASA administrators were instrumental in crafting our project for the institution's goal of reaching beyond Earth, the Astropharmcy team also got to connect with other Ames scientists, engineers, and fellow interns throughout the summer! We are all, after all, working towards the same goal of making life better on Earth and off. Particular highlights of the team's summer included touring the wind tunnel and the Vertical Motion Simulator on Ames campus with the rest of the intern community, as well as attending various networking events with other researchers at Moffet Field. The Astropharamcy will not exist in a bubble, and the ability to learn what others were doing (and vice versa) in order to help humanity explore the solar system was vital in how we saw our project fit into the larger mission plan.
Touring the largest wind tunnel in the world!
While our presentations to and discussions with NASA administrators were instrumental in crafting our project for the institution's goal of reaching beyond Earth, the Astropharmcy team also got to connect with other Ames scientists, engineers, and fellow interns throughout the summer! We are all, after all, working towards the same goal of making life better on Earth and off. Particular highlights of the team's summer included touring the wind tunnel and the Vertical Motion Simulator on Ames campus with the rest of the intern community, as well as attending various networking events with other researchers at Moffet Field. The Astropharamcy will not exist in a bubble, and the ability to learn what others were doing (and vice versa) in order to help humanity explore the solar system was vital in how we saw our project fit into the larger mission plan.
Touring the largest wind tunnel in the world!