SPONSORED WALK!

Last Wednesday, 7 of our team members took part of our sponsored walk from Leicester to Market Harborough.

The image shows our route by the canal. We started walking from the University of Leicester campus at 9.30am and we reached the edge of Market Harborough at 9.30pm. It took us 12 hours to walk 22.4 miles!
The sponsored walk raised almost 400 pounds! And we would like to extend a big thank you to all of our sponsors, friends and family that donated!

The walk itself was an adventure. There were uncountable amount of blisters, heat and midday sun, and getting lost at the end of our walk. Nonetheless, we made it to Market Harborough and everybody had a great time!

We also had multiple stops along the way, since we were carrying backpacks of food with lunch and snacks and in addition to that we had a couple of pub stops. The nature and canal itself were beautiful. Just as we were walking into Market Harborough, we witnessed an amazing sunset! And it is all captured on photos.

Furthermore, we were asked by the iGEM team of the Norwich Research Park from University of East Anglia to send in soil samples. Dr. Badge was carrying all the necessary equipment and we have quite a number of samples collected.

Now on to the photo evidence of our 22 mile walk.

              The team (minus Dr. Badge taking the photo) at the beginning of our walk by the canal.

Happy team (somewhere near the 5mile point)!

 A lot of bridges with interesting names along the way.

  Dr. Badge collecting soil samples by the canal.

12 miles and counting! From left to right: Dr. Badge, Dupsy, David, Brett and Clara.

David taking a break from the walk and manning the lock gate.

Arriving into Foxton Locks, our 20 mile marker! The team was so tired that our stop lasted an hour. During which we had a nice pub meal and rest, before continuing on with the last 2,5 miles.

Last few miles left, sky is turning pink.

Walking into Market Harborough, can't conceal the excitment! 

And the official arrival to Market Harborough!

The team from left to right: Clara, David, Quezia, Dr. Badge, Tanvi, Dupsy, Brett, Chris.

Young Synthetic Biologists with the UK iGEM teams

Over the weekend of Friday the 12^th of July, some members of the team attended the Young Synthetic Biologists (YSB) conference at the Wellcome Trust and UCL. This provided us with an opportunity to not only represent our university but also interact with members of other iGEM UK teams.

Each team gave a brief presentation about their project and also had posters with extra information. The projects were all very innovative and exciting and some teams even collaborated with each other before the end of the programme.

Of course, people loved our Citizen Science Kits (CSE) and even requested to plant some as far as Dundee!

Furthermore, we were split into groups to attend different workshops. This provided an opportunity for the representatives of different universities to work together as a team to achieve a common objective. Therefore this activity encouraged unity amongst the UK teams.

Finally, the most exciting part of the weekend was getting to meet Randy Rettberg (iGEM president) who gave a very inspiring speech about iGEM, its challenges and benefits and future plans for the competition.

Well, I guess meeting and getting to know each other has led to encouragement and acquisition of new ideas, especially for new teams. Consequently, I believe the UK teams are now primed for the European Jamboree where we actually get to battle it out!

                                              Arrival and setting up of posters.    

                                           Our poster.

                                                Quezia and Dupsy .

                                             Dupsy explaining ideas on how to get funding.

Presentation for BPF

Today, we had a great opportunity to introduce our project to the industry and pitch for sponsorship at the British Plastics Foderation's conference.

Part of our team drove down to Birmingham to do a presentation at the conference, which was held at the Ramada Encore. The trip was great and the presentation went excellent! 

Here's a few pictures of the day: 

The grey MI6

Arrived at the Ramada Encore

Preparing for the presentation

Chris after the presentation- went well!

In addition to this amazing opportunity, some of the team will also spend the weekend in London, at the annual UCL iGEM teams meeting, with teams from all over the UK. There, they will have also have to present and introduce our project as well as participate in many other iGEM related activities, like workshops and feeback exercises. For more information about the event, check out their website: http://synbiosoc.org/ysb/

Since the team will be busy this week, attending and preparing for these exciting events, we have decided to postpone our sponsored walk until the 24th of July. Despite the postponement, the event is still very much happening and will be live streamed as promised. We are also very grateful to everyone for their donations and support!