Introduction

We regard science communication as a crucial part of iGEM competition and expect to communicate our project, opinions,even basic scientific knowledge to people from all ages. We endeavor to let more people engage in biotech-related activities and open a dialogue with more people interested in this field after being intrigued by our material.

This year, we chose the form of boardgame to be the material that’ll help us communicate with the public.In order to enhance the participation at all ages(especially children we would like to focus on), a simple but lively material is exactly what we need.In the board game , players will play as a staff in a biotech company and learn about the differences between traditional and oral vaccines, properties of well-known viruses,and even the right precautions towards specific illnesses, which we think pivotal under the era of pandemic.

It was formed to educate the public on fundamental health know-how that is easy to apply in our daily lives and also meaningful to promote to family and friends, which will likely lead to a life-saving knowledge in the end .It’s surely an interesting method for people to learn about the topic relevant to vaccines and,of paramount importance, when they gradually understand how the biotech can be simply connected to our lives and important health issues on the world, Fun Vax. soon transform into a game that sparks their fire of passion for synthetic biology,twisting people’s conventional ideas on it We have brought this game to a summer camp we held in an elementary school(to lecture the student about synthetic biology) ,presented it in biotechnology club of our school as well as the Steam Fair to promote the atmosphere of learning basic biotechnology in school, and we even took it to the National Museum of Natural Science, which ended up influencing hundreds of people on the contribution synthetic biology has done for the world.

Material

Purpose (Introduction to Fun Vax. )

At first,we held a market survey to test how the public understands the concepts of vaccines.When we did street surveys for market research, we educated the public at the same time. At the onset of our survey, we introduced synthesis biology and IGEM to them. Then we informed them of our product, Phaccine. Additionally, we told them the advantages of our products and how they work.

After the surveys, we found that a few people know synthesis biology and IGEM, and fewer people comprehend what phage is. Good thing we told the public what it is when they were doing the questionnaires. Besides, we also tried to make them learn more about Phaccine. In conclusion, we think the public could understand the knowledges of synthesis biology deeper and also leave our product in their minds What’s more,we found that kids commonly couldn’t comprehend the meanings and knowledge of oral vaccines.Moreover,after we observed that awareness of synthetic biology among the children was low,we realized that this was due to the course arrangement in Taiwan doesn’t include so much about public health and synthetic biology As a result, we made a board game for them to solve this problem. After the event, we’ve gained experiences and some thoughts. First of all, we’ve realized how adorable and intelligent the minor audiences/kids are. After the teaching we provided, most of them understood our simple hands-on experimentations.

Not only did the students who participated in the events had learned lots of experiment skills they never knew before, we also enhanced our problem solving and communication skills.

Rules (procedures)

1. At the beginning of the game, you will first get a character card chosen by yourself, and it will likely affect the result of the game with different skills every character holds.
2. You will have 7 cards in your hand, which were distributed by the host. Each card(no matter the policies or the vaccines) has a corresponding addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
3. The virus cards that are uncovered at the end of every round will have different characteristics and strengths(points). Players should use the corresponding cards according to the virus cards, or its effect will be regarded useless.And the winner of first round shall have the least points deducted, this process will also be supervised by the host(Reminder:You should determine what cards you would like to use in this round and place them on the table in 30 seconds.)
4. Move on to the second round,since you can’t take back the cards that were used, you could only the cards left.After two rounds, the final winner will be the one that has the the least points deducted in total.

Special cautions:This game is an individual battle,but if any member deducts more than 400 points after two rounds, the entire company will go bankrupt and everyone will lose.For general needle vaccines( card name), the side effect(payment) is that , you’ll have to give up two cards in the next round of draws.

Board Design & Cards

(Characters)Initially, Players will each get a role in this game. There are three positions, which are president, research fellow, and employee. Each character has different functions. Player who is president will get two more disease prevention cards. The player getting the research fellow card can choose two kinds of oral vaccine cards in advance. The rest of the players will all be the employees and have seven disease prevention cards in advance.

(Viruses)Virus cards are divided into 200, 300, and 400 attack power levels according to the severity of the disease. At the beginning of the game, players need to turn over a virus card as a base card, and players will then play the disease prevention cards in order to fight the virus attack.

(Disease preventions)Disease prevention cards can be divided into two functions, including reducing the attack of disease(red card) and improving our own prevention index(blue card).The red card can reduce the disease attack power according to the number on the card. For example, if the attack power of the disease is 300, then the card which lets the attack power 10% off will make the attack power of the disease into 270. The blue card can reduce the disease attack power by its own increased prevention index. For example, if the attack power of the disease is 300, then the player who gets an increased prevention index by 100 can turn the disease attack power into 200.

(Vaccines)There are two types of vaccine cards, traditional needle vaccine and oral vaccine. Traditional needle vaccine can resist one round of virus attack; however, the player has to discard two cards in the next round. On the other hand, with the right oral vaccine corresponding to the virus cards, player can resists one round of virus attack without any “side effect.”

Supplement (setting of the material)

In the beginning of the board game, players will first receive an announcement from the host.( who also plays as the founder of the biotech company as an helper of the game, and is responsible for explaining the meaning of each card to participants)

“Hello everyone.My name is Future Wong, known as the founder of "Future Biotechnology", the largest biotechnology company in MD (country). Recently, the company has suffered a large loss. It is necessary to bring the company back to life within the shortest matter of time, otherwise it will go bankrupt. This voice message is to inform all of you that I happened to encounter various epidemics abroad and saw multiple viruses were raging, however, I have troubles with my passport and can’t go back to my homeland. Experts here believe that a virus will be introduced into our country every half of a month(a month is equal to two rounds) by turns. Therefore, I recommend the president to make all of you,my employees, to be the helpers of Center for Health and Disease Control .You must enact the best policies and anti-epidemic measures before the viruses take lives away, so that the company may turn losses into earnings and save people’s lives, simultaneously.Remember, the company will count the results of everyone's efforts in half of a month(each round).If you have a good performance in the very two months, you can take over the Future Biotechnology from me and continue to run the company. Please, save the country, good luck to you .”

Material In Action

General Public (science fair at National Museum of Natural Science)

To begin with,we brought the board game to the National Museum of Natural Science During the process.Our game was mainly designed for kids.As long as they approached our stand, we would give them a short presentation about our project concept.Then, we would play the game with them,most of them were joyous and fulfilling.

Moreover, adults were also interested in our games, so we gave them instructions on how to play our board games.In addition, we introduced the IGEM competition. Both children and adults enjoyed the game a lot.

Elementary Students (summer camp)

We had a summer camp with the elementary students(see more in our “education”page ) .Via the board games , students had a better understanding of hygiene knowledge and prevention of disease. In addition,they also conducted the banana DNA extraction experiment.We hope this could inspire their interest in the area.(Also please check out the education page!)

Moreover, skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were necessary to complete the game; hence, the game also helped students exercise their mathematical skills.

Junior High School Students (biotechnology club)

To enhance the atmosphere of biotechnology in our school. We used our leisure time to train the juniors. Starting from the basics, it took us a few lessons to teach them some background knowledge. Afterwards, we acquainted them with the equipment in our laboratory. Moreover, we operated several experiments, such as mini prep, PCR, agarose gel electrophoresis, and bacterial culture. Last but not the least, we completed a two-days experiment transferring GFP into E.coli.Through those experiment, they seemed to have sincerely devoted their attention to “the time of science”, which we were so glad to see.

Junior High School Students (steam fair at school)

Similar to the biotechnology club, we held a science fair in our school.Since we saw some special junior students showing their passion about biology and asked us questions, the event was developed.We mainly did electrophoresis and plasmid extraction. Many of the students were new to electrophoresis, so the strength was hard for them to control when they used the pipettes to load the GFP genes used E.coli to do the experiment and did the step that adds PD3. On the last day, we taught them DNA coding, including four nitrogenous bases—A,T,C,G and the process of how DNA became proteins. In the end, we split them into a few teams to see who's the fastest to decode the sequences first and gave the winners rewards. We hope the sense of accomplishment will thus plant a seed in their mind and make them want to engage in synthetic biology after they grow up.

Conclusion

Communication is undoubtedly thought-provoking, it’s the thing representing our spirit and deep affection for synthetic biology to our descendants as well as the public. We tried hard and put efforts to come up with an interesting board game to assist us in communicating our experimental ideas, intentions,influences, and enthusiasm, wishing that our material can inspire or encourage someone to join the world of synthetic biology. With various activities held with the general public, elementary school students, high school students and so on,we have conversations with and receive positive reviews from countless people and thus reckon our science communication a success. From the reviews received , with students eager to join us, with children happily participating in the hands-on experiments and our board game, and with inspired adults asking us questions concerning iGEM, we have definitely propagated much about synthetic biology,iGEM,and of course, the nucleus of our experiments in society. Some say” Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”, but it’s for sure that our enthusiasm for biotech shown in the above contents will help us achieve the great goal!