Link to sketch here
I am motivated to make science more accessible and easier to understand. As a research assistant at the Henaff Lab, I approach microbiology through different disciplines and engage with microbes through storytelling and different modalities.
On April 26, 2024, we showcased our work at the Tandon Research Excellence Exhibit.
and we won first prize !
The Gowanus Canal is a heavily polluted site in Brooklyn. The black sludge at the bottom of the canal is a lethal mix of 150 years of toxins and microbes that break down these contaminants. Here’s a video I made explaining more of the history and our lab:
We are engineering a hydrogel with metal binding properties from bacteria found in the canal. Future applications of this gel will be used to clean up contaminated sites.
At the research fair, people got to make slime, a prototype of the hydrogel
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The sludge we collected from the canal was also on display
People also had the opportunity to play an earlier version Gowanus Game while we explained our research. The game uses the ml5 library Hand Pose feature, where the webcam tracks your hand position. Your hand becomes the hydrogel, absorbing metal contaminants and removing it from the environment when you move the metals out of the water.
I based my project on the sketch my lab mate created for her Creative Coding final here
My initial edits included turning the points to vectors, creating a Metals class that seeks a target, and replacing the circles into images of bacteria.