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Projects to promote interdisciplinarity and open innovation

Biomaker Winter Challenge 2021:

Exploring Plants, Soil and the Environment

The Biomaker Challenge is an opportunity to work with an interdisciplinary team to identify and solve lab or field challenges, learn to use code-free programming for hardware and user interface development, develop biological applications, scientific instruments and real-world tools, or develop new ideas.

The 2021 Challenge “Exploring Plants, Soil and the Environment” will support teams to develop hardware and/or software projects in 3 categories:

  • Sensors, field communication and machine learning for environmental survey and monitoring.

  • Measurement and control of plant growth in science, agriculture and gardening.

  • Electronic and biological sensors for management of soil health.

Examples of previous relevant projects can be found on the Plants and Instrumentation pages.

This year, we are promoting the generation and sharing of XOD-based no-code resources, but other coding environments are entirely acceptable.

Teams will have the opportunity to develop links with researchers at our partner institutions (University of Cambridge, John Innes Centre, Earlham Institute), or partners in the Signals in the Soil (SitS) programme. This year’s Biomaker Challenge is funded by the BBSRC-EPSRC OpenPlant Synthetic Biology Research Centre and the NERC-NSF Signals in the Soil programme.

 
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Sensors, field communication and machine learning for environmental survey and monitoring

 
 

Measurement and control of plant growth in science, agriculture and gardening

 
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Electronic and biological sensors for management of soil health

How to Get Involved

Watch the short video below to learn more about this year’s call.

 
 

To apply, please document your idea (name, elevator pitch, 200-word summary and team members) on the Hackster website, and submit your project to the Biomaker Hackster Hub. You can find instructions on how to do this here. Please read the eligibility criteria, call details and code of conduct before applying. For more information please contact the SynBio IRC coordinator, Steph Norwood, at coordinator@synbio.cam.ac.uk.

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 Activities

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  1. See the biomaker.org website and/or attend the Biomaker 2020/21 Showcase (19th October 2021) to gauge the nature and scope of resources available to Biomaker participants.

  2. Assemble a team and roughly define a project of interest. 

  3. Document your idea and team on the Hackster website, and submit your project to the Biomaker Hackster Hub.

  4. All approved projects will receive a free Hardware Starter Kit for each team member (while stocks are available), and access to training materials. (November 2021)

  5. Biomaker will provide online training sessions in the lead-up to the Xmas-New Year break. Training sessions will cover the basics of no-code programming and working with hardware, as well as tips for open-source documentation. (December 2021)

  6. After the training sessions, teams will be provided with a free package of more advanced hardware.

  7. Teams can pursue their projects through to March 2022. Community support for projects will be provided through the XOD forum, and through online workshops. (December 2021 - March 2021)

  8. Projects will be documented and shared through the Hackster website The deadline for completed documentation will be 15th March 2021. Judges will select finalists for online presentation. 

  9. There will be a presentation ceremony (22nd March 2022), and prizes will be awarded for best projects in each category.  

 What is Required from Participants?

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  • Your team must adhere to the eligibility criteria and code of conduct.

  • Teams must be interdisciplinary and affiliated with one of our partners (University of Cambridge, John Innes Centre, Earlham Institute, Signals in the Soil).

  • Projects must align with this year’s themes of:

    • Sensors, field communication and machine learning for environmental survey and monitoring.

    • Measurement and control of plant growth in science, agriculture and gardening.

    • Electronic and biological sensors for management of soil health.

  • Your hardware and software should be accessible and reusable. This means that you need to think about open licensing, standard file formats and clear, detailed documentation.

  • All projects should be documented on Hackster.io (software can be documented on Github and linked to Hackster).

  • Teams are expected to submit their final documentation by 15th March 2022, and attend and participate in the final presentation and prize giving on 22nd March 2022.

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Call Details

Please read the eligibility criteria, judging criteria, call details and code of conduct before submitting a project.

Eligibility Criteria

Primary applicants can be students or staff at the University of Cambridge, John Innes Centre or the Earlham Institute.

  • Similarly, members of any laboratories affiliated with the NERC-NSF Signals in the Soil Programme are highly encouraged to join.

  • Any external affiliates of the institutions and laboratories mentioned above are welcome and encouraged to join.

  • If you are not from a participating institute but are interested in joining a team, please get in touch with us by emailing coordinator@synbio.cam.ac.uk.

  • Teams can be any size, including individuals if all other eligibility criteria are met.

  • Interdisciplinarity within the team is a judging priority but teams or individuals from the same discipline are not excluded.

  • All proposals must lead to a publicly documented (on Hackster) and open hardware design and prototype which demonstrates interdisciplinary thinking.

Judging Criteria

Judges will evaluate the proposals based on Hackster project page. They will give a higher priority to proposals which:

  • Promote and demonstrate interdisciplinary working and exchange, with members of the team being highly likely to learn from each other.

  • Have a clearly articulated use case in biology and are highly applicable to this year’s themes (see above).

  • Involve interesting ideas for low-cost sensors and instrumentation.

  • Include the generation and sharing of XOD no-code programming resources.

  • Are feasible given the timing, costing and team proposed.

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