IGEM Judging Feedback

This page provides a breakdown of the judges votes for this team for each aspect of the project. You can use this information to get an idea of where your team did well and where it could be improved.
If a table is shown on the right, it displays the number of votes sorted by rating from high to low. This can give your team an idea of how the votes were spread by the judges. The number of votes and number of judges does not affect your score.
Comments from the judges, if any, are provided below.

Evaluations for SF_Bay_Area_DIYbio 2014, Championship

		Votes by Rating
		+					-
	Project
	How impressive is this project?	1	3	3	1	1
	How creative or novel is the teams project?	1	6	2
	Did the project work?			1	6	1	1
	How much did the team accomplish?			4	4	1
	Is the project likely to have an impact?	1	3	4	1
	How well are engineering and design principles used?		3		5
	How thoughtful and thorough was the team's consideration of policy & practices?	3	3	2	1
	Did they do the project themselves?	6	2
	Track Specific
	Is the team's project based on Standard Parts?	2		2		2
	Are the parts functions and behaviors well-documented in the Registry?		1		1	2
	Wiki
	Do I understand what they did and why?	1	1	2
	Is it attractive and easy to navigate?		1	1	1	1
	Are the data clearly connected to their accomplishments?			3		1
	Did they attribute the project correctly?		4
	Presentation
	Clarity of presentation: Could you follow the presentation flow?	3	2	1
	How good is graphic design? (layout, composition, grammar)	1	3	2
	Did you find the presentation engaging?	3	3
	Did they attribute the project correctly?	1	4	1
	How competent were the team at answering questions?	2	2	2
	Poster
	Clarity of poster: Do you understand what the team did and why? Is the data clearly presented?		1	2
	Does the poster flow visually?			3
	How good is graphic design? (is it neatly arranged, is the grammer correct, are key points clear)		1	1	1
	Is the data clearly presented?			1		1	1
	Did they attribute the project correctly?	1	2
	How competent were the team at answering questions?	1		1
	Policy & Practices Advance
	Does the team's policy & practices work represent a novel contribution? (in methods or data or understanding of a topic)			2
	How well did the team articulate its P&P question(s), approach and findings?	2
	How much did the team accomplish through their P&P efforts?		1	1
	How well integrated with the broader project was the P&P work?		2
	Does the P&P project provide a good example for others?		1		1
	Model The judges did not evaluate this category
	Innovation in Measurement The judges did not evaluate this category
	Supporting Art & Design The judges did not evaluate this category
	Supporting Software The judges did not evaluate this category
	New Basic Part
	Was it submitted according the iGEM Registry Guidelines?	4
	How does the documentation compare to BBa_K863006 and BBa_K863001?				2	2
	How new/ innnovative is it?		1	3		1
	Did the team show that it works as expected?		1		1		3
	Is it compatible with Registry standards?	3				1
	New Composite Part The judges did not evaluate this category
	Part Collection
	Is this collection based on an RFC or its own internal standard?	1	1
	Did the team submit an internally complete collection allowing it to be used without any further manipulation or parts from outside Registry?		1				1
	Did the team finish building at least one functional system using this collection?			1			2
	Did the team create excellent documentation to allow future use of this collection?		1			1	1

Comments from the judges
Judge 1

• Vegan cheese from synthetic biology is an interesting idea, the project is doable, and result might have a profound impact on society's impression of the real risks and reward of synthetic biology research.
• The poster had a lot of text which didn't do justice to the exciting nature of the idea of the project.

Judge 2

• Really nice project that could potentially be applied to many other agricultural products. The video on the wiki was funny and a great way to explain this project to a broad audience. It is great to see that the group consulted with the vegan community and that there was a positive reaction to this idea
• The team also haven't shown any data to show that their system works even in E.coli. This characterisation data needs to be added to the wiki to allow other teams to benefit. It would be useful to know how much of the work was specifically for iGEM and how much would have happened anyway.

Judge 3

• Awesome project!!! Really great attitude about everyone bringing their own expertise rather than thinking of folks as novice biologists. It's clear how that resulted in a great project idea and great outreach.
• This is a very practical project. The major challenge will be to get production of proteins to economical levels - would be good to include the target yield you think you need to hit and how far off you are from it (along with a sketch of a plan to hit that target).

Judge 4

• This project is really capturing people's imagination and changing the way people think about our field. I wish you great success!
• I wanted more science! The biology of casein is complex enough to satisfy any scientist. Why does it coagulate? How does expressing casein change yeast physiology. How can it be purified efficiently? What might affect the expression level? Why did you choose this genetic system?

Judge 5

• This project was exemplary for the blend of public outreach as embodied is the kickstarter and the AMA, and for the original parts submitted.
• As mentioned by the team itself, this project would represent an un-precedented achievement in synbio as applied to consumer foods. Given those high ambitions, it would have been more satisfying to see some results on the chassis of interest - yeast. (Also, I think you should have pursued the policy and practices special award in connection with your work on consumer sentiments in context of a fairly significant crowd funding campaign).