Hackterialab 2013, Bangalore-brief overview

The hackterialab workshop was conducted from the 30th of January to the 12th of February at NCBS(Bangalore), everyday from 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.

DAY ONE: On the first day, we met all the participants, who introduced themselves without stating their respective professions. We continued our interaction with them through the day. After breakfast, we moved onto brewing wine with Timbil and Sakar. It was interesting to see how one can brew wine with almost any fruit/vegetable. Later on in the day we met with Sachiko who briefed us on what we would be doing over the next few days.

DAY TWO: During the first half of the second day we worked on paper circuits and coming up with interesting artwork using LEDs and 3.0V cells. Radha and I worked on this:



If only we got to learn Physics the fun way in school..

Later we worked with Sachiko on the genetically modified E.coli. We prepared growth mediums with agar, also samples of bacteria in LB with and without Kanamyecin and left them in the shaker overnight.



















Everyone was eager and did participate in the above processes.

DAY THREE: On day three we went dumpster diving and found discarded objects that we could use in the lab. Later we continued working with Sachiko on the bacteria. We retrieved the samples from the shaker and noted observations.





Then we diluted the samples and later spread them onto the agar plates for the bacteria to grow and form colonies.







We were all a little intimidated at first when it came to working with genetically modified bacteria. But all the steps were fairly simple and easy to understand.

DAY FOUR: On the fourth day, Sachiko showed us the luminescence in a sample of water. We were all excited to see that the experiment had been carried out successfully. Later we worked with Spela on chloroplast isolation. By the evening, we had successfully extracted a good amount of chloroplast from tobacco leaves. The extracts were then frozen and put away.

DAY FIVE: On day five, Spela and Robertina showed us zebra fish eggs which had been injected with the extracted chloroplast and then we discussed other such projects and they showed us some of the work by artists who worked with living matter, bodily fluids, fungus and much more.