Biomaker Challenge

Biomaker Challenge Final Showcase | 19th Oct | 17:00-18:30

Biomaker Challenge 2020/21 Final Showcase Announced

16 September 2021

Hear from the Biomaker Challenge 2020 finalists and find out more about their low-cost, open-source biological hardware projects.

Virtual Meetup: Join our Monthly Biomaker Catch-Ups

8 February 2021

New monthly virtual meet up for anyone interested in the intersection of biology engineering and computer science.

Mycotextil Team Release Practical Guide to Making Fungal Biomaterial

11 August 2020

The Mycotextile project is a transdisciplinary exercise that seeks to develop an open source biomaterial. The project was developed in response to the fast fashion movement, encouraged by the textile industry, which generates serious socioenvironmental consequences. We set out to create a mycelium-based textile from native...

Our Biomaker Challenge: An XOD Library for the BNO055 Absolute Orientation Sensor by Matt Wayland

21 June 2019

I'm an imaging specialist based in the Department of Zoology with a background in biology and bioinformatics. I have no formal training in any aspect of engineering, but I enjoy working on open hardware projects when the opportunity or need arises. I first heard about XOD at the 2018 Biomaker Fayre last autumn and was excited about its potential to enable people with limited or no coding experience to program microcontrollers. For more experienced users, it offers rapid prototyping of hardware.

[Apply by 2 Sept 2019] The Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Research Fund - 2019 Call for Applications

The Fund supports pairs of researchers (post-doctoral level and above) from the University of Cambridge (or an affiliated institution such as the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Babraham Institute and NIAB) and sub-Saharan African institutions, across all disciplines, to initiate and/or strengthen research collaborations.

This Summer's Cambridge-Norwich Biomaker Challenge Will Support 27 Diverse Open Science Projects

30 May 2019

We're very excited to announce the project list for this year's Biomaker Challenge. The participants span 20 University of Cambridge departments, several Norwich institutes, and include industry professionals and international collaborators from Germany, Chile, Argentina, Kenya and beyond. The proposals were incredibly varied, including everything from a neural sensor for early-stage cancer detection to a low-cost incubator to grow mycelium biotextiles. What's next in the challenge? We're putting the final touches on this year's training materials and are looking forward to our first training event on Monday 3 June (all are welcome)!

2017 Biomaker Team in Line for Early-career Innovator Award for Open Source Chamber for Speed-Breeding and Crop Transformation

30 May 2019

A group of young innovators based in Norwich Research Park have made the final of the BBSRC Innovator of the Year 2019 Awards.Their project, initially prototyped through the 2017 Biomaker Challenge, has made speed breeding more accessible to the research community.

Biomakers in South America, Africa, and beyond looking for Cambridge and Norwich collaborators for the current funding call

26 April 2019

OpenPlant Biomaker is a five-month programme challenging interdisciplinary teams to (i) build low-cost sensors and instruments for biology or (ii) develop a biological resource or outreach project with up to £3000 support. As we are about halfway through the call, and following a well-attended mixer session, there are now several UK and international researchers looking for collaborators before the call closes on Monday 13 May! Who they are and how to connect with them....

Biomaker Training in Ghana: Introducing biologists and non-biologists to building science hardware

23 April 2019

The Biomaker Africa programme is the first of its kind in Africa, aimed at training biologists and non-biologists to learn, design, prototype and share science hardware critical to building tools for laboratory use and environmental sensing. Additionally, the programme is geared towards enabling teams to find solutions to problems in agriculture, health, research and education particular to Africa. Biomaker Africa includes 4 countries: Ghana (Kumasi Hive), South Africa (University of Pretoria), Egypt (Mansoura University) and Ethiopia (Bahir Dar University). Harry Akligoh of Kumasi Hive details the exciting two-month intensive Biomaker training program that was implemented this spring.

[Apply by 28 April 2019] Biomaker Challenge Africa Coordinator (May-July)

The Global Challenges Research Fund is supporting a pump-priming programme to take the Biomaker Challenge to centres in Africa. Biomaker is an interdisciplinary programme that brings together multiple teams to build low-cost sensor devices and instruments for biology ( https://www.biomaker.org ). The Biomaker Africa programme is co-organised by the Synthetic Biology Strategic Research Initiative, the BBSRC-EPSRC OpenPlant, Centre for Global Equality and OpenBioeconomy Lab in Cambridge. We are looking for a Challenge Coordinator for 12 weeks during May-Jul 2019 to take responsibility for coordinating participating teams and managing online communications and social media. This includes organising and publicising events and highlighting interesting projects online through writing and multimedia presentations, coordinating training and connecting teams who might be able to share knowledge and skills.