User:Macowell/team checkups

From 2007.igem.org

Revision as of 17:41, 13 July 2007

Bay Area RSI

Andy Mendelsohn - 650.965.1544

3:35 12 July

Just got $5000 from avid (one team member friends with son of high-up executive apparently), have been waiting for money to order constructs and pay registration fee (have earmarked $2500 for Jamboree fees & travel). They have an external wiki, so I asked them to put a link up to it on the iGEM07 wiki. Basically they got started in the middle of June and have a deadline for the final design tomorrow, (friday 13). So far they haven't done any wetwork at all. I encouraged them to get going on that.

Berkeley LBL

Connie (Yisheng) Kang - 510.260.7188

3:50 12 July

No response; left message to please call back

Chiba

Daisuke Umeno - Phone number not provided

Colombia-Israel

Raul Cuero - 936.261.5011?

Duke

Jingdong Tian - 919.684.3494

3:54 12 July

No response; left message to please call back

ETHZ

Sven Panke - +41 44 632 76 60

4:04 12 July

Let it ring several times, then realized it was probably 10:00pm there. Not sure if ETH even has a team this year...

Glasgow

David GILBERT - +44 141 330 2563 / davidgilbertskype

4:06 12 July

No response; left message to please call back. Right... it's also probably 9:00pm there.

12:58 13 July (via skype)

They essentially started last monday the 2nd. Have some IP concerns but that won't preclude general descriptions online. Nonetheless, they are only just now getting their wiki started. They have a roster but no project description. Spent a week teaching modelers modeling and wet lab kids wet lab stuff, and just taught modeler kids how to do minipreps.

Their summer starts around mid-june and ends in October. They had the impression that team had to be 10 students for only 10 weeks, so they are constraining themselves to that timeline. I mentioned that other schools find ways to have iGEM classes that allow students to continue iGEM work before or after summer, and that there is definitely nothing wrong with going over 10 weeks.

Told having a good wiki is important so judges have projects to evaluate two weeks before Jamboree, but stressed that it's even better for teams to be using and editing it day-to-day to so that the community has a public face, instead of waiting till the last minute to build it.

David noted one general benefit that he hadn't expected: Their lab is located in a pretty serious molecular bio research lab and the students, the modelers at least, have been forging links with other researchers due to watercooloer conversations, i.e. "iGEM student to researcher: oh, you're working on plant mesoderm development... Well, yeah, I know just how to model that. Making a model would be easy..." an unintended but very good side effect.

Problems

• Sometimes a feeling that there's a communication issue / black hole; not knowing who to talk to. Having the conversation (in skype video, no less) was really good because it lets them know who to reach out to for help.

• Some sort of minor? trouble with the plate of parts, but not sure what... referred me to speak with the lab manager.

• Lack of central front page makes describing and explaining iGEM to other people (faculty members, fundraisers, etc.) very difficult. Nowhere to link to. I told him to just give out links to igem07 wiki frontpage and that we'll be making it much better soon.

Action Items

• Have similar skype video conversation with members of the team next week to emphasize using the wiki to

present the goal of the team and daily progress towards goal. Perhaps also give links to successfully used templates for wiki organization (berkeley / MIT wiki layout?) Show them the rss feed screensaver.

• Also touch base with lab manager, either via email or in that skype conversation, about part problems. Demonstrate how to use part problem list on front page.
• Touch base with nearby teams and help organize a meetup in august
• Follow up with David.

Lethbridge

Hans-Joachim Wieden - +1.403.329.2303

4:09 12 July

No response; left message to please call back.

Minnesota

Yiannis Kaznessis - 612.624.4197

4:11 12 July

Things not going well! Haven't gotten needed additional funding. Team disintegrated about a month ago. Not enough students "subscribed to the idea of the competition" - they already had research topics & advisors. Yiannis blames himself for not advertising enough, emphasizing potential of iGEM projects & career path benefits. Two bottlenecks he encountered: forming the team and getting the resources needed to do experiments -> can't get funds to do experiments without lots of students, can't attract & hold onto students without the resources.

Can't participate this year at this point. Next year: the bioinformatics institute (BSI) makes offers to students around February; Yiannis wants to explicitly present an iGEM team as one of the projects students can apply to work on at that point in time, instead of in may, as it occurred this year.

Action Items

• Check on status of Minnesota registration money, refund if possible
• follow up with Yiannis in August to make sure he's coming to the Jamboree

Missouri Miners

Katie Shannon - 573.341.6336

4:30 12 July

4 students working on timer, 3 working on breathalizer. Did it that way because funding limited team size to less than or equal to 4, so they had 2 teams. Haven't had problem with registration fee;

What could we do better next year for 1st year teams? Get registration website online much sooner! How did you get a team together? Made flyers (using central questions), had info session, got 30 students! Not as many engineers, but that's probably because she didn't hang as many on the engineering side of the campus. Had organizational meeting in time for students to apply for ORUI ($1000) on-campus summer funding (deadline in april) - would have been harder to support team if She had missed this deadline. One of the stipulations of the ORUI funding is that the students have to write a little paper about their experience - we should ask for copies.

Action Items

• Email Katie Shannon to request team to put project abstract, picture, and roster online.
• Email Katie Shannon & Todd Eckdahl about organizing an august meet-up / bbq.
• Email Katie Shannon at end of summer to request copies of ORUI student essays.

Naples

Diego di Bernardo - +39 081 6132 319

Peking

Yiping Wang - +86 010 62758490

Prairie View

Raul Cuero - 936.261.5011

Purdue

Jenna Rickus - 765.494.1197

5:31 12 July

No response; left message to please call back.

Rice

Joff Silberg - 713.348.3849 (got from google search)

5:42 12 July

Left a message to please call back. Not sure if it went to the correct mailbox.

St Petersburg

Evgeny Zatulovskiy - +7 921 362 47 72

Tokyo Tech

Daisuke Kiga - +81 45 924 5213

Tsinghua

Guoqiang Chen - 86 10 62783844

Turkey

Mahinur Akkaya - +90 312 210 3196

USTC

Haiyan Liu - +86 551 3607451

Valencia

Javier Urchueguía - +34963879895

Wisconson

Franco Cerrina - 608.263.4955

3:30 12 July

No response; left message to please call back

5:30 12 July

Tried again. No luck. Didn't leave message.