Contacts

During our researches and experiments on microbial cell, we had the opportunity to meet, exchange and work with many people who helped us or gave us advises that made us evolve on the project.

• 26.09.2015 - Michka Mélo and Guillian Graves - Bio-inspired collective "Enzyme & co".

Michka, bio-engineering, and Guillian, designer, are collaborating on different projects and offered us their experiences and multidisciplinary methodologies. Michka, who also did experiments on microbial cell, regularly shared his findings, discoveries and discussions (yields, data capture, tests on the electrodes ...). Guillian brought his design skills to the project (thinking about contexts, applications, production...).

• 03.05.2016 - Paul Rengade - Biomimicry, social entrepreneurship, plants and technology.

Paul is travelling in France to meet, gather and create links between actors of biomimicry. He is particularly interested in reconciliation between human technologies and plants. Beyond his active participation on some experiments, he also allows us to have a more concrete vision of the project that develop around these issues.

• 25.05.2016 - Wurth company- Electronic equipment and customer support.

After being contacted by Johann for micro-processors samples, a commercial of the company came to "La Myne," curious to learn more about the project and the specific context in which it develops. He gave us several precious advises and are willing to keep in touch with us, to assist us in case of technical need.

• 01.06.2016 - Raphaël Civade - Biology and genetics.

Raphaël came to us to give a hand on the project. He allows us to move forward, using new skills he brings.

• 08.06.2016 - Elie Desmond - Doctor in Microbial biology.

We solved some points on which we were stuck thanks to Elie, who perfectly knows the subject. He brought us a lot of information and material references.

More specifically, he advised us to use some graphite felt as electrodes, some stainless steel wire for connection, and some compost as soil. He also told us that using a membrane could be counter-productive because it might lower the current.

• 04.07.2016 - Julien Bellanger - Member of "PING" association.

Julien worked for several months on a microbial cell prototype inspired by Bruce Logan's work. He shares our desire to transmit our respective advancements and visions of these projects based on the same principle (the microbial cell) to evolve together.

Invasion plan

To begin to work together effectively, we have defined an "invasion plan" (objectives and steps for the bacterial cell). It consists of :

1. Implement rapidly test prototypes.
2. Contact biology students potentially interested to work on the project.
3. document the project to open it for everyone who wants to work on it.
4. List materials to buy / collect for a successful prototype
5. Establish more precisely the protocol, and the prototypes' design :

• After reception and harvesting of the necessary materials, set up the prototype 1 of microbial cell. A simple prototype without plant and membrane whose objective is to achieve a stable electrical performance and compare different devices. After that, we can add plants to see the differences it makes.

• Upgrade the prototype by capturing data (voltage, amperage, temperature, sunlight, humidity) in order to have stable measurements. These data allow us to have a stable base to test different variables.