Initially, my involvement has been administrative in nature; planning meetings, brainstorming sessions, collaborations and the BioBrick tutorial. Since then my main occupation has been the synthetic biology of the project, which entails a lot of (re)designing constructs and lab work (including the Interlab Study). Additionally, as team leader I’ve interacted a lot with the other arms of the project to discuss all sort of details and trying to keep things coherent.

I have been heavily involved with the creation of the high school iGEM team (CHSS) together with Tenna. In addition to this, I have been in charge of contact with Ecovative Design and helped with presenting in the elementary school project. With regards to lab work, I have been working together with David, Joen and Tenna in the synthlab with the assembling of BioBricks.

In the beginning of the project, I organized a cabin trip for the team to do some team building, and later on, I’ve been working on analyzing the growth of the fungi including both some image analysis and creating a model that simulates the microscopic hyphal growth. Furthermore, I have been assisting with the design of the wiki in regards to creating some of the graphics and other aspects.

Early on, my main focus was increasing the strength of the material, which has been the main drive in creating the statistical model. I’ve also worked on collection of data, such as structural data, and design of experiments. I’ve worked on creating a simple growth model of fungi, based on existing literature. This model can describe how fungi grows on a meso level, which means that its measurable quantity is explicitly density of mycelium. I’ve also been a part of creating the statistical model, and helped gather structural data of the samples.

In the start I focused on ensuring that we chose a project, e.g. plan and book. Together with Mathias I looked into different types of growth models. After looking at many different types, the coupling between model and reality was not as well-studied as hoped. I started working on modelling structural mechanics for the final structure, as a test of realistic conditions. I also grew fungi under different conditions since MycoLab had some periods with very few people.

I was involved in a lot of branches throughout the project. I performed the Interlab study together with David, started the elementary school project and was heavily involved in creating the iGEM high school team (CHSS). I was one of the main responsibles who planned and executed the Biobrick Tutorial 2018, kept track of administrative work, worked on designing and writing a big part of the wiki, and I worked in the synthlab.

My efforts in this project have mainly been distributed in a threefold way: Fundraising, accounting and laboratory work. In the spring, I focused my time on applying for grants. Over the summer, I have spent my hours either being in the lab or thinking about being in the lab. Occasionally, in parallel to the rest, I have also brought forth a spreadsheet with expenditures and said “No, we cannot buy that.”

My involvement in the project has mainly been in the modelling part of the project. Particularly most of my time have been invested into statistical modelling as well as creating the experimental designs regarding compressive strength experiments. Furthermore my involvement also included initial attempts in creating a growth model of the fungi via a hidden markov model approach.

My early involvement in the project was mainly about fundraising and generally being involved in the handling of the group economics. Later on, I was part of the mycolab where I focused on determining the optimal growth conditions of our fungi. Moreover, I was responsible for developing a protocol for the manufacturing process of our bricks.

During this project, I’ve been mostly placing my energy in Human Practises where my main focus has been the collaboration with KU and Exeter. My competences in chemistry have been put to use in measuring chitin levels in the fungal material.

Early on, my main focus was increasing the strength of the material, which has been the main drive in creating the statistical model. I’ve also worked on collection of data, such as structural data, and design of experiments. I’ve worked on creating a simple growth model of fungi, based on existing literature. This model can describe how fungi grows on a meso level, which means that its measurable quantity is explicitly density of mycelium. I’ve also been a part of creating the statistical model, and helped gather structural data of the samples.

During the first three months I focused in the economy group, where I was writing funding applications, creating budgets and booking accomodation and flights for the whole team. Then, I was part of the mycolab, where I carried out experiments related to fungi biology. I have been involved in culturing fungi, generating protoplasts, transforming fungi and other lab activities. Also, I have been in touch with several PhDs at the bioengineering department that have provided us with knowledge to continue with our project.

During the project my main focus was on creating a responsive wiki. I worked both with the wiki framework and the design aspect of it.