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From 2010.igem.org

UK iGEM get-together, Newcastle, 20th and 21st July, 2010

With eight enthusiastic UK iGEM teams attending, this year’s UK get-together was an excellent mix of science, speculation, tapas and beer. The teams attending were Aberdeen, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Sheffield, St. Andrews (first-time iGEMers) and UCL.

We kicked off with a brief talk from each team about their projects, followed by a team-building exercise. Mindful of the degree of enjoyment and education generated by last year’s exercise in Edinburgh, we asked their instructors for advice – was the suggestion of using spaghetti and marshmallows to build a tower which would support an egg for 20 seconds some sort of boobytrap? It’s amazing how much mess eight teams can make with a couple of dozen packets of marshmallows...

There were some amazing designs:

Which then had to be tested:

And judged:

Dinner was a tapas venue. The discovery that it had to be reached by walking through pouring rain, only to find that the tables weren’t ready didn’t dampen too many spirits. Well, not once the excellent food and copious amounts of alcohol started arriving.

Next morning we had talks on the practicalities of doing iGEM, previous experiences as a team member, and biosafety and risk, before lunch and departure. All in all, an excellent time was had, and the teams look forward to engaging in fierce competition at the Jamboree.