IGEM:Harvard/2006/Project Proposals

Organization Suggestions

Think about these questions when preparing your project proposals for the group meeting.

For each project idea:

• What is the specific goal of the project?
  • Alternate phrasing, courtesy of Kit Parker - what is the "deliverable?" The thing you will point to and say "this is our project?"
• What are two or three possible means of implementing the idea?
• Risk
  • How many untested things have to work for the project to succeed?
  • How will you test whether those things work or not?
  • How will you adjust your plan when one of these things fails to work?
  • How will you minimize the time/effort/resources lost to a failed design?
    • Can your time/effort/resources apply to more than one design simultaneously?
• Reward
  • How cool, fun, exciting is the project for you?
  • What if any is the usefulness or societal benefit of the project?
  • What is going to impress the judges in November?
• Timeline
  • What are the project milestones? (design, construction, testing)
  • What is the estimated time required for each? (always overestimate)
  • If you can't reach your ultimate goal by August, is there a satisfying intermediate goal?
  • What is the immediate next step in pursuing the project?
    • If DNA synthesis will be required, how soon will you have the sequence designed?