Season calendar
Daily work Set-up, prototyping or wrap-up
How our work evolved
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Phase 1 Dec to Apr
Foundation and Safety
The season started with rigorous team safety training, the set-up of protocols for basic experiments, and early dry lab modeling, alongside human practices outreach with experts and schools.
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Phase 2 Apr to May
From Design to Lab
As our protein and peptide designs matured, we moved into molecular cloning, including Golden Gate Assembly and colony PCR. Alongside it we established our Arabidopsis plant-stress set-ups and started the hydroponic and bioreactor pilot runs.
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Phase 3 Jun to Aug
Core Execution and Insight Integration
The summer was our peak of operation and experimental progress. Wet lab cloning, bioreactor runs with Bacillus subtilis, plant salinity and heat stress assays, and protein expression and purification ran in parallel, and continuous measurement was tightly coupled with vigorous human practices engagement.
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Phase 4 Sep to Oct
Result Synthesis and Wiki
Wrapping up and polishing the final data analysis and characterization, model validation, and full wiki documentation.
Wet lab notebook
Each file below is the team's own export, including gene circuit construct results, plant protection outcomes and electrophoresis gel results. The lab notes were recorded daily without post-processing, so all original entries, such as failed runs and repeated gels, are still included. The blank pages the export put between one day and the next, and the reference format template at the front, were taken out of the files; no entry was changed.
April 2026
- Recovered and verified the pNW33N plasmid.
- Prepared sfGFP DNA fragments by PCR.
- Built the initial shuttle vector using Gibson Assembly.
- Verified the assembled plasmid by enzyme digestion.
- Started setting up the Arabidopsis hydroponic system. Plants
May 2026
- Prepared electrocompetent Bacillus subtilis.
- Tested electroporation conditions for B. subtilis.
- Prepared plasmid DNA for bacterial transformation.
- Established Arabidopsis salinity experiments. Plants
- Tested NaCl + trehalose conditions to study stress protection. Plants
June 2026
- Tested B. subtilis growth in the bioreactor.
- Prepared and verified different genetic parts.
- Performed transformation and Golden Gate Assembly.
- Continued Arabidopsis salinity experiments. Plants
- Measured fresh weight and chlorophyll content to evaluate plant growth. Plants
July 2026
- Repeated and optimized Golden Gate Assembly for genetic constructs.
- Performed B. subtilis electroporation with engineered plasmids.
- Screened transformed colonies.
- Continued Arabidopsis salinity experiments. Plants
- Began testing engineered systems under stress conditions.
August 2026
- Screened and verified engineered constructs using colony PCR, gel electrophoresis, miniprep and enzyme digestion.
- Performed multiple levels of Golden Gate Assembly.
- Started protein analysis, including SDS-PAGE and Western blotting.
- Tested recombinant protein purification and dialysis.
- Continued Arabidopsis heat and salinity stress experiments with protectants. Plants
- Tested B. subtilis growth in hay infusion as a possible environmental growth medium.
September 2026
- Ran Level 0, Level 1 and Level 2 Golden Gate Assembly through the month.
- Screened colonies by PCR and gel electrophoresis almost every day.
- Prepared WB800 electrocompetent cells and electroporated the assembled constructs into them.
- Ran SDS-PAGE and Western blots on the expressed constructs. Measurement
- Sampled the bioreactor run on 2 September.
October 2026
- Carried the Level 2 assemblies on, each batch checked by colony PCR and gel.
- Transformed and screened the pcyA–CcaS–CcaR light-sensing construct. Parts
- Electroporated the finished constructs into WB800.
- Ran an ELISA on 10 October. Measurement
- Kept liquid cultures and minipreps going for the verified colonies.
Plant notebook
Unlike the day-by-day record of the wet lab notebook, a complete plant experiment unfolds over days and sometimes weeks, and its critical milestones, from seed vernalization and transfer to protectant application and harvest, are spread across the calendar. To keep every experimental trial as one continuous record, our plant notebook unifies each experimental set from start to finish and tracks all of its growth timeline results. Full protocols and complete outcomes are on our Experiments and Plants pages.
Experiments
Weekly meetings
Professor Kyle is a postdoc at NTU whose field is Arabidopsis. He met the sub-team on Wednesdays until the end of August and on Tuesdays from September, and each report carries the week’s photographs, his comments, and the problems going into the next week: contaminated plates, sinking float boards, the wrong ELISA wavelength.
Daily plan log
Through the last weeks the sub-team wrote the next day out as a forecast and then closed it off as a progression, so the two lines under one date show what was planned beside what happened. The log starts on 30 September and runs past the last meeting, so it overlaps the two October reports.