NOTEBOOK
January
Attend Engineering Student Council meetings to recruit members and speak about SynBio and iGEM.
February
Held meetings on our campus with the Genetic Engineering Society. Invited students of all majors to inform them of the competition. Additionally, we help brainstorm sessions between divided teams to think of projects we could potentially conduct during the fall.
March
Vote on team structure. Developed two teams; one team which would work on the physical hardware aspect; the second team would focus on designing and executing lab testing for the project. Run feasibility project checks with team advisors to get prospective on projects with highest potential for success.
April
Complete fundraising for team registration. Begin registering ideas for potential products. Finally, we ensured that all members who would be participating in lab work completed all safety certifications for BSL-2 conditions.
May
Begin lab work and training for those who needed it, protocol assignments, summer lab schedule, and work requirements are established. Begin compiling information for wiki.
June
Re-visit the drawing board to refine our project idea and continue to develop microbial fuel cell design using assembly and SolidWorks software. In addition, continue research on different pollutants and biosensing parts that could be applicable for our specific design.
July
Improve the design of the microbial fuel cell, begin the revised genetic engineering portion, order parts and supplies. Continue lab training for all members. Begin assembling prototypes for fuel cell. Order glass and other accessory materials required for running the fuel cell. Consult and collaborated project with UT IGEM over ideas, project, and jamboree details.
August
Summer class finals, supplies re-orders, more lab training to perform more extensive techniques, beginning of school. UT Arlington IGEM banner was created. Received funding from College of Engineering and Bioengineering department for travel. Finalizing design and using an epilog helix laser cutter to cut out acrylic frame of the fuel cell.
September
Continued with the revised genetic engineering portion of our project, maintained working function of our microbial fuel cell, finalized gene assembly methods and finalized a plan to integrate the two components of our project. Some members of our team also attended UT iGEM's Undergraduate Research Symposium. Finalizing travel itineraries. Started creating IGEM Wiki.
October
Finalize the two portions of our projects separately, make travel plans, and make our poster and presentation.
