Education

Because our 2022 project has to do with engineering parts of a bacteriophage, the iGEM team decided to create a museum exhibit for the AJ Read Science Discovery Center that will help educate the public about virus biology and the potential to engineer viruses in beneficial ways.

Engaging Stakeholders

The A.J. Read Science Discovery Center is a free, hands-on museum for people of all ages and abilities that is located on the SUNY Oneonta campus. Its mission is “to connect visitors to the joy and power of the scientific process through authentic, interactive exhibits, and to serve as the indispensable Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) resource for the SUNY Oneonta community and the wider region.” This museum features interactive exhibits that engage patrons of all ages to teach them about basic scientific concepts. Our team decided to contribute to the facility. Our team was inspired to create an exhibit of our own that would give people a basic understanding what bacteriophages are and to demonstrate how they can be used by synthetic biologists to solve problems.

   
Team members visited the AJ Read Science Discovery Center to learn about exhibits .
To begin this part of our project, team members went to the Discovery Center to talk with Science Outreach Coordinator Doug Reilly. We toured the Center, looked at different types of exhibits and learned about what makes for a successful exhibit. We discussed the balance between text and images, the appropriate level of content, and what type of interactive activities work best in the Center. Mr. Reilly observed that younger patrons are drawn to exhibits that involve assembling things or taking them apart, which became a problem when they disassembled the Center’s telegraph! He also noted that he is observing difficulties with the development of fine motor skills in many children and attributed it to the prevalence of interactive touch screen devices. He encouraged us to consider designing an exhibit that helped develop motor skills.


Julia, Dom, and Liam are delighted with an interactive landscape exhibit.
After our visit to the Center, we developed our initial exhibit concept. We wanted to design an interactive “Build-a-Phage” activity. Here, 3D-printed parts resembling the major components of bacteriophages would be set out with a description of what to do. The pieces would be designed to fit in the appropriate locations to give people a realistic image of what phages look like. Our original concept included an electronic component that would use LED’s to signal to the participant that they had correctly assembled the model. It was at this point that we met with Dr. Erik Stengler, an expert in science museums and a professor at the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies. We explained our ideas and showed him draft sketches to illustrate our concept. Dr. Stengler provided us with several key pieces of helpful feedback. He warned us that the circuitry design for to produce the lighting effect we desired might be challenging. He also encouraged us to minimize the use of electronic screens, if possible, in order to maximize engagement. He emphasized that we must have a clear goal or message for our exhibit. Based on his advice, we refined our idea and established a set of learning goals.


An early concept sketch for our bacteriophage model was presented to Dr. Erik Stengler.

Exhibit Goals

We chose to introduce the concept that viruses infect bacteria as well as humans, and to explain the structure of these viruses. Our goals for the exhibit are as follows:

By engaging with the Build-a-Phage exhibit, visitors will:

1. the basic structural components of a bacteriophage.
2. Learn about the viral attachment and DNA delivery processes.
3. Understand some of the benefits and drawbacks of bacterial viruses.
4. Further develop fine motor skills by building a model with different modes of connection. ( This goal is geared towards younger participants.)

Exhibit Design and Prototyping

To achieve the above goals, we designed an exhibit that consists of the following components:

1. 3D-printed model of a bacteriophage: Visitors will assemble a bacteriophage model from basic parts. Each part type has a different type of connection (notch, screw, magnet), to facilitate the development of motor skills in young children. The process used to design, test, and refine this model is described below.
2. Backdrop: This poster contains images accompanied by simple text that explains what bacteriophage are, describes the parts and life cycle of the virus, and has pictograms that show how to assemble the 3d-printed model. It also describes positive uses for phage, including our project and a new to the market acne treatment that utilizes bacteriophage. The first draft of the backdrop can be viewed here.
3. Video: The exhibit will contain a tablet on which the participant can view a video animation that describes the lytic phage life cycle. Due to time constraints, we elected to use a freely available YouTube video rather than attempt to produce our own.
4. Wooden puzzle: We designed an image that reinforces the life cycle concept described on the backdrop and in the video. We had this image made into a wooden puzzle that visitors can assemble.

Image used for the wooden puzzle component of the Build-A-Phage museum exhibit .

3D Printed Bacteriophage Model Development- Initial Design

The most difficult aspect of exhibit development was the design, testing, and refinement of the 3D printed bacteriophage model. Physics student Jacob Ghiorse assisted us with this component of the project, developing designs in SolidWorks based on specifications given to him by the rest of the team. We began by providing him with a description of phage structure, including relative dimensions based on measurements from electron micrograph images that we located in the literature. We selected a minimal set of parts and determined that we wanted to include a screw, a notch-matching piece, and a set of tiny magnets as the connections in the design. Although the process was delayed when the Discovery Center’s 3D printer went down, we were still able to complete several cycles of design refinement and test printing, which are described below for each of the parts.

Phage Head
The head of a phage is a shape known as an icosahedron or a twenty-sided shape. To design this shape in SolidWorks, you take a triangle and then loft it to a single point, essentially creating a triangular pyramid, then repeat this process until you have a ring of ten triangles. After that step, the pentagonal shape created on the top and bottom of the triangle ring is lofted to a single point. Once that step is completed you are left with an icosahedron. A cylindrical ring was put in the bottom of the head into which the tail of the phage will be nested.


Version one of the phage head (left), tail (center), and leg (right).

Tail
Creating the tail for the phage model consisted of extruding two circles at different locations. The first location creates the visible part of the tail after being inserted into the head. This was done by extruding a circle upward at an angle to create a cone with a flat top and bottom. Afterwards, a second circle was extruded up from the cone, this time without an angle constraint, to create a cylinder to be inserted into the head of the phage. Once that step was completed, some threads were added to the tail and head to allow for a screw mate to hold the tail and the head together. After the threads were added, a cut was made to allow the legs of phage to rest inside the tail. Leg
The leg pieces of the phage were created by making two cones. Much like the tail, it was done by extruding a circle at an angle constraint creating a tapered extrusion. However, a sphere was created on the end of one of the legs to make the connection of the two legs much stronger. After that was done a T-joint was constructed at the top of the leg to allow it to be inserted into the tail without it falling out.

Video demonstrating the initial concept for model assembly.




First test print of virus model pieces.

3D Printed Bacteriophage Model Development- Refinements

Head
After the first iteration of the head the idea of having the top being removable to allow access inside was designed into the model. This was done by separating the top and bottom of the head and placing key holes on the top and bottom, this made sure there was correct orientation on the placement of the two pieces.

   
Version 2 of the head allows for DNA to be placed inside the capsid.

Tail
A test print of the head and tail allowed us to determine that the resolution of the print would not allow the two pieces to screw together. To fix this, instead of using a thread to mate the tail and head together, two pins were added to the tail that would act as an extension the head could hold onto. Similarly, an upside down “L” shaped track was created on the base of the head for the two pins to slide in. This created a twist-lock mechanism that would fix the tail and head together.

   
Modified versions of the tail (left) and the leg joint (right)

Leg
The leg did not need much redesign. However, after printing a test leg, the T-joint snapped off the upper leg piece rather easily. To fix this problem, a ball joint was created there instead, to remove the excessive use of sharp edges the T-joint used. This meant a new cut needed to be made on the tail to allow the ball joint to be placed into the tail.

Exhibit Refinement Continues

The current version of the 3D printed model (shown below) still does not function exactly the way that we would like, so we are continuing to test new ideas for its design. This prevented us from putting up a complete prototype of the exhibit, from which we had intended to solicit additional developmental feedback from visitors. Once we have a complete set of functional interactives for our exhibit, the prototype will be deployed in the atrium outside the Discovery Center. After consulting our campus Institutional Review Board (IRB) and determining that we did not need special approval, we designed a survey that will accompany the exhibit prototype, which can be found here.