A Biotic Game Design Project for Integrated Life Science and Engineering Education

Abstract

Engaging, hands-on design experiences are key for formal and informal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Robotic and video game design challenges have been particularly effective in stimulating student interest, but equivalent experiences for the life sciences are not as developed. Here we present the concept of a "biotic game design project" to motivate student learning at the interface of life sciences and device engineering (as part of a cornerstone bioengineering devices course). We provide all course material and also present efforts in adapting the project's complexity to serve other time frames, age groups, learning focuses, and budgets. Students self-reported that they found the biotic game project fun and motivating, resulting in increased effort. Hence this type of design project could generate excitement and educational impact similar to robotics and video games.

Device and programming abstractions for spatiotemporal control of active micro-particle swarms

“…The synergistic integration of global and local stimulus modalities (side LEDs, projector, and microfluidic chip mazes) combinatorically increased the possibilities to manipulate and interact with microscopic swarms compared to previous systems. 7,30,31,[37][38][39]50 Having multiple stimulus modalities can also greatly accelerate specific tasks compared to single modality stimulation, e.g. the command fastCompress, which combines the LED stimulus with a projected barrier, is at least an order of magnitude faster than the command compress, which only uses a shrinking projected barrier (Fig.…”

“…All three stimulus modalities have been demonstrated individually with Euglena before, but they have not yet been combined in one device. 31,37,39 Note that Euglena have an inherent degree of variability, which makes complete characterization of all possible Euglena behaviours difficult. Here, we focus on the most robust and consistently observed Euglena responses.…”

“…1). We combined several existing biotic processing units (BPUs 30,38 ) from other experimental 7,37 and interactive biology 31,39 setups to create a single highly expressive BPU (Fig. 2).…”

Microfluidic assembly kit based on laser-cut building blocks for education and fast prototyping

“…To address even younger students, additional features can be added to each layer, such as cut or printed numbers to indicate in which layer of the stack the piece goes and the piece's proper orientation. For older students, including college level device classes, 38 more flexibility can be granted by, for instance, allowing the students to create novel designs of their choosing.…”

“…Furthermore, microfluidics will not only be an important platform in cell biology, materials science, chemistry, physics, fluid mechanics, and engineering disciplines but also giving its interdisciplinary nature, it is also a great learning opportunity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education for students in K-12 and undergraduate levels. 12 Hands-on teaching and gamification 37 of learning has been proven beneficial, 38 and experiments such as electrolysis of water 39 or analytical devices 40 have been proposed. Bardin and Lee 41 recently proposed a whole series of experiments focusing on various age groups and featuring learning opportunities about fabrication, droplet generation, and flow characteristics.…”