Biomod Blog

There was a 1-day inconsistency between the deadlines listed on different pages of this website for the wiki freeze deadline. We are going with the later date (Oct 27). Good luck wrapping things up this week!

All teams should have received an email with a link to the registration form. Please register by September 14th!

The revised judging process is now available!

tl;dr: Wiki, YouTube video, and presentations are now all scored the same way, according to posted criteria.

Visit our how to join page for and follow the link to the registration form.

Here are the summarized results of the student surveys. Thanks to everyone who responded with feedback to help us improve BIOMOD.

Question 1: What aspects of BIOMOD did you enjoy and think we should keep the same in future years?

• well-organized (6)
• awesome hotel (5)
• judging criteria in general / nice balance between wiki/video/talk (5)
• youtube video requirement (3)
• presentation length (3)
• projected wall timer (2)
• good food (2)
• prize money (2)
• single-day event (1)
• after party (1)
• Autodesk seminar (1)
• frequent facebook updates (1)
• light emphasis on ‘execution’ (1)
• limited focus to biomolecular design (1)
• open-ended project (1)
• useful quickguide (1)

Question 2: What are your recommendations for improving BIOMOD?

Social:

• more time for socializing/networking (5)
• official party / sponsored event (2)
• assigned seating at lunch to intersperse teams (1)

Deadlines:

• earlier wiki freeze (3)
• longer presentations (2)
• summer date (2)
• different date from igem (1)

Scoring:

• assign less weight to presentation (3)
• presentations should be scored differently (1)
• completely revise scoring system (1)
• teams should get more direct feedback from judges (1)

Score reporting:

• publish all judging scores (1)
• publish scores for top 5–10 teams (1)
• publish scores directly to teams so they can improve (1)

Rules:

• more detailed guidelines for wiki/video/presentation content (2)
• more deadlines/checkpoints through the summer (1)
• require project topic approval (1)
• have students send identification to verify they are undergraduates (1)
• limit team size (1)

Jamboree format:

• add poster session (2)
• add more tutorials / workshops / lectures by professors (1)
• top finalists should give encore presentations (1)
• longer jamboree (1)
• transportation between hotel and event (1)

Awards:

• add prize category for scientific impact/relevance (1)
• add prize category for computational work (1)
• encourage non-DNA-origami projects via prize categories (1)
• more award categories (1)
• popular vote prize (1)