How PICACHU can help the natural environment
Shenzhen, as a coastal city, has a long coastline and a significant amount of wetland. However, because of a lack of research on migratory birds, which are indicators of wetland, researchers cannot monitor the wetland, leading to the disappearance of wetland. Therefore, to protect the wetland, we decided to use the battery to help scientists to study migratory birds by powering GPS. To further learn about migratory birds and GPS, we went to the Dapeng Leucadendron Floridum Wetland Park. In the park, experts were excited about the project after our introduction. They also told us that providing power to sensors, which are used to protect mangrove forests, century-old trees, and traditional villages, is a problem.
Further investigations
After learning their demands, we contacted Seeed, a large sensor company. Besides contacting with various sensors, we learned their standardization spirit there as well, which inspired us to design our AA/AAA batteries, and knew a fantastic project initialed by WWF, called Marine Litter Detective—in the shape of Poke Ball, tracing the pattern of litter by studying ocean current. But it has a fatal weakness: lithium batteries' pollution.
However, PICACHU enables the project to be a hundred percent environmentally friendly because it is biodegradable, which is significant for the ball to prevent further pollution since it cannot be retrieved after the launching. We are currently developing a flexible PCB battery, suggested by Professor Qin from Shenzhen University, designed to install on the Poke Ball's inner surface. In the future, we want to install it on the inner surface of a spaceship and power equipment there.
Public Education: Education Kit
Our team’s educational kit is designed for primary and middle school students, aiming to increase young people’s understanding of synthetic biology. The kit includes three experiments: extracting DNA from household materials, citrus batteries, and making culture medium. And all the materials, such as edible agar, clay cell models and alcohol, are safe for teenagers to use. We prepared booklets and recorded demonstration videos in order to instruct students to complete the experiments. These educational kits are distributed to different schools to motivate the young’s interests of participating in the synthetic biology.
Escape Room Game
We also designed a room escape game called “PICACHU”. The player is trapped in a laboratory and needs to make a battery of e-pili that can generate electricity to open the door and get out of the laboratory. The game contains basic experiments such as PCR and Gibson Assembly. It can help players understand the experimental procedures of our project as well as part of the synthetic biology.