Biomaking Guide Book Sample

BIOMAKING

A visual guide to explore making with Biology

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Biomaking Guide2022

Biomaking Guide 2022

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BIOMAKI NG A visual guide to explore making with biology Biomaking: A visual guide to explore making with Biology by Alisha Collins

Brilliantlabs.ca Editor: Mary Moore

Foreword by Corinne Takara Science Editor: Dr. Will Collins Afterword by Dr. Andrew Pelling Design Lead: Alisha Collins Illustrations by Varshini Girish and Ishita Shailesh

Book Design: Cheryl Willson Cover Design and Illustrations: Varshini Girish and Ishita Shailesh

English Edition Additional graphics: Canva.com Copyright 2022 by Brilliant Labs ISBN: 978-1-990839-01-6 Some rights reserved This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Published by Brilliant Labs Inc. 1 Germain St. #300, Saint John, NB E2L4V1 Canada

Biomaking Guide2022

ABOUT Brilliant Labs An Atlantic Canadian-based charity offering a hands-on, experiential learning platform, providing youth with opportunities to develop coding and digital skills.

When creativity, innovation, and technology are applied to projects supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), educators and youth can create change within their classrooms, their communities, and throughout Atlantic Canada, and beyond.

Mission To work with young people, educators, and community leaders to develop creativity, innovation, digital skills, and a socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurial mindset.

Vision To provide every educator and youth in Atlantic Canada, and beyond, with the opportunity to develop the necessary coding and digital skills required to create, innovate and inspire a future of sustainable development and growth throughout our region and our communities.

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CONTENTS Pg.8

Foreword

Pg.10

Biomaking for a Sustainable Future

Pg.22

Chapter 1: Biofashion

Pg.29

Chapter 2: Myco Materials

Pg.36

Chapter 3: Conductive Biomaterial

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Biomaking Guide2022

Chapter 4: Microphotography

Pg.47

Chapter 5: Food Composites

Pg.58

Afterword

Pg. 69

Sources

Pg. 71

Acknowledgements

Pg. 76

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FOREWORD Science sometimes feels like a list of things to memorize in a field where everything already has been discovered,but in reality, bioscience at the intersection of design is creative, messy, exciting, and full of new horizons. We all have the opportunity to explore and play a role in shaping our Bio Future.This guide book focuses on innovative simple biomaterial explorations that can spark, sustain, and deepen student interest in sustainability design.

Sustainable material solutions might arise out of collaborations with humble organisms in often overlooked corners of nature that are low cost and relatively easy to bring into the makerspace or classroom. Fungus, kombucha, algae and the exoskeletons of insects might be essential to developing new circular design pathways.

How might we engage students and our communities in pressing sustainability issues and do this in a meaningful way? How might we develop playful and engaging biomaterial design experiences that make sustainability topics fun, exploratory, and expand people’s sense of agency and deep connection to the nature around them? What can we do together to discover the answers to these questions, not just learn “about” them? These are some of the questions that drove the development of the engaging projects shared in this guidebook.

One cookie tray growing kombucha leather in the corner of the room can change the whole feeling of possibilities in a classroom or makerspace.By growing and harvesting the materials we craft and build with, we can start to imagine designing with nature in new ways. We can connect to our natural world, ancestral knowledge,and envision a more sustainable future. It creates opportunities to examine pressing environmental issues from a place of creativity and curiosity, rather than from a place of guilt and dread.

I first met Alisha Collins,the author of this guidebook,in person at the international Biodesign Challenge in New York City in 2019. Being among the few youth educators developing biomaterial programming at that time, it was inspiring to meet a passionate fellow educator exploring similar activities centered on biomaking. My teen Biodesign Challenge team, the GIYBio Buddies, won Second Placethat year with a biomaking toy kit.

The fact that they won in an international field of universities and high schools with a toy kit highlighted the importance of play and experimentation in biodesign and sustainability discussions.

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Biomaking Guide2022

Having developed biomaking programs in collaboration with San Francisco Bay Area science museums, universities, community biolabs, and high schools,it is endlessly inspiring for me to see how people light up when they design and build using cellular materials. Not only do people become deeply engaged with the materials and organisms, but they start to imagine future applications and find connections to their own lives. There is a deep desire to share ideas and stories in these moments of making that arises out of a fascination for the blending of the familiar with the foreign. These activities leverage biology that is around us, but which is mostly overlooked, or if thought of at all, seen as disgusting and dirty. Sharing stories in the moments of making enablesmakers to distill their learning and embrace this new personal connection to the living world around them.

This biomaking guidebook presents an exciting range of biomaking recipes and prompts for anyone starting to explore biomaking. It is a needed resource to expand participation in imagining sustainable biological futures. Shaping compelling stories through art and design will be critical to facilitating future conversations about circular design, bioengineering ethics, and sustainability design. This biomaking guidebook is an incredibly useful resource in empowering educators and students to begin biomaking journeys.

-Corinne Okada Takara (Designer & Educator at the Nest Maker Space)

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BIOMAKING FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE What if we could grow a sustainable future? Let’s explore biomaking for designing sustainable products, spaces, and services.

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Biomaking Guide2022

Designing for Bio Futures In today’s modern world, biotechnology impacts our everyday lives. It can also help us design new bio-based sustainable products and materials.

Biodesign is an emerging field that uses biological materials and systems to make products for human purposes. Around the world, people are exploring ways of bringing biotechnologies outside of research labs and into community spaces.

Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek has grown 3D-printed furniture using the root structure of mushrooms.

Artists, designers, engineers and hobbyists are harnessing the power of biological living-materials to solve critical problems, create sustainable design products, and make bioart.

To support cutting-edge, hands-on biodesign adventures, Brilliant Labs started the Biomaking Initiative. It helps young people explore complex biological systems in nature to solve critical problems.

Biomaking is a new concept of makerspaces in which young people collaborate with harmless microbes like fungi, bacteria, yeast, and algae to design meaningful projects for a sustainable future.

Biomaking has 3 Components: Biocollaboration: Working in tandem with nature

Biomimicry: Seeking inspiration from nature

Biofabrication: Living materials as factories

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The Plastic Problem

What do you notice?

When plastic was invented the intention was to solve a problem and make our lives easier. But before we realized it, plastic itself became a ‘wicked problem’ that is embedded in our everyday lives. Plastic was originally made naturally from sap and gum trees by the Olmecs of Mexico. They used it to make rubber balls.

Plastic is now produced synthetically and used to make almost everything.

How do you feel about it?

What do we do about it?

Plastics are made of long flexible repeating chains of molecules called polymers. This molecular structure can be adjusted to get the desired properties of flexibility and density. Today, thousands of types of plastic are made primarily by using non-renewable resources such as crude oil and natural gas. The plastic manufacturing process also uses a lot of chemicals as cleaning solvents that damage the environment.

Global plastic production increases dramatically each year and shows no sign of slowing down.

Moreover, synthetic plastic does not decompose, and most of it ends up in the trash. We are dealing with a huge plastic waste problem that pollutes our communities, threatens marine species, and endangers wildlife. A great deal of damage is caused by single use plastics that aren't recyclable and remain pervasive throughout the environment.

In part, we can tackle this problem by limiting our use of plastic, and using more sustainable methods to produce it. As consumers, we can decrease plastic waste by reducing single-use plastics and going for reusable alternatives.

As designers, we can use biomaking to create new ways to produce products with biodegradable plastics instead of synthetic plastics.

We can collaborate with organisms such as mealworms and waxworms to eliminate plastic waste. Some organisms can eat synthetic plastic materials, such as styrofoam, and turn them into compost by breaking down the plastic polymers. Scientists have also discovered bacteria that can help with the bio-recycling of plastics. It drastically reduces the time for plastics to decompose.

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Biomaking Guide2022

We can use biomaking to solve the plastic crisis.

Seeking Inspiration from Nature Biomimicry is a process through which we design projects inspired by designs we see in nature. To mimic means to copy. We are copying nature.

Collaborating with Nature Biocollaboration is a process through which we use materials found in nature and seek help from creatures and organisms to design something.

We are working with nature.

Designing for Nature This is a process of building ecofriendly projects that benefit the environment instead of causing damage. We are taking care of nature.

Collaborating with Creatures Designers and engineers are currently working with these living organisms to design innovative biomaterials.

Mushrooms: The branching part of mushrooms is called mycelium. It is used to make biodegradable plastic alternatives.

SCOBY (Symbiotic culture of bacteria & yeast): This is commonly used as a culture for making kombucha (fermented tea).

Silkworms: These worms are traditionally used for making silk. They are now also used in research for medicines, cosmetics, architecture, and tissue-engineering.

Mealworms & Waxworms: These insect larvae consume harmful plastics like styrofoam during their development.

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Key Word Search

Biomaterials -These are materials that come from natural biological sources. They are sustainable and good for the planet.

- This is the process of collaborating with microbes and individual organisms.

It allows for creative engagement and production of new biomaterials.

- This is a process of collecting what would otherwise be waste materials and finding new applications for them after they have served their intended purpose.

- Repeats of individual chemical linkages form long branching chains that may form films or strands but in many cases may not be degradable - Many organic materials that are derived from synthetic materials and petroleum derivatives are not capable of breaking down into smaller parts - This is a descriptive term for both processesand materials which may be compatible with the general environment.

- These are a list of 17+individual societal goals set out by the United Nations which we as a community seek to attain.

- The UN is a group of many developed nations which seek to act as a clearing house and community for ensuring peaceful transition of power and calm resolution

to issues that may emerge - This material is derived from seaweed and other acquatic plants and forms a rubbery gel when exposed to calcium chloride or similar salts making it especially useful for bioprinting and similar exploits as it can quickly harden.

- A naturally occurring polymeric biomaterial derived from the plant cell wall that is especially absorbent of water and is highly resilient.

- This material was originally derived from animal connective tissue (i.e.tendons, skin) but can also be made recombinantly by microbes. When acidified it can create a syruplike solution which will form a gel when exposed to sodium hydroxide (NaOH). The denatured cooked form of collagen makes the basis of gelatin.

- This is a material commonly found deep beneath the ocean constructed by marine invertebrates. They are large colonies of many organisms but are categorized into soft corals and hard corals. Much like egg shell the hard corals are composed of aggregate calcium carbonate.

- This ‘elastic-like’ bio-polymer was originally gathered from gnathosomes (jawed vertebrates like sharks and cartilaginous fishes). An example of which might be the rubbery texture of a shark's fin. Some of these materials can be made recombinantly now with yeast and/or E Coli.

- This material is also derived from connective,epithelial and nervous tissue and was initially described as a ‘goo-like’as a ubiquitous cartilaginous tissue found throughout the body.

- This biomaterial was the basis for many fabrics from the East (i.e.China, Japan,and India) and is polymeric forming long strands. Silk is biocompatible and can be used for many applications in tissue engineering or a host of other applications.

- These are long chains of linked sugars that form the bulk of energy storage in plants and are an energy dense resource. They are commonly used in cooking and for our purposes can be used to thicken or ‘bulk’ a solution so it becomes more paste-like.

Design - This is the process of imagining how something might be done differently in order to accommodate resource constraints.

CHAPTER 1: BIOFASHION Grow your own fabric using low-cost supplies. Collaborate with millions of friendly microbes (bacteria and yeast) to design sustainably.

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Biomaking Guide2022

What if you could design products or clothes with materials you grow from nature?

Biomaking allows us to explore biodegradable and bioderived materials by collaborating with harmless microbes.

In this session, we will learn about biomaterials and investigate ways to collaborate with millions of friendly microbes (bacteria and yeast) to design microbial films that can be used to make sustainable fashion products.

The Fashion Problem Fast-fashion is a serious problem. Fashion trends change quickly. There are seasonal trends, and now even shorter micro-trends because of Tik-Tok and celebrity influencers. With fast fashion, clothing and accessories are mass produced quickly and cheaply to keep up with the dizzying demand.

This rapid production and consumption of fashion is destroying the planet.

CO2 emissions are polluting the air. Chemical waste is destroying the soil and the water.

Furthermore, many people are working under unsafe and unfair labor conditions to keep us “in style”. Landfills overflow with textile waste as more and more clothes and accessories become obsolete. This clothing is rarely recycled because it is a complicated process and requires intense resources. Even just washing the synthetic fabric most fast-fashion clothing is made from can release microplastics into the water system.

Bio Fashion There is an emerging bio-fashion field where people are exploring alternative materials to synthetically derived or treated fabrics. Most of this is taking place in either research institutions or startup company labs.

However, soon this will become commercial.Perhaps you can invent something and start a bio-fashion business. Many artists are also exploring sustainable fashion using scientific methods.

A company named Algiknit is making fabrics using threads made with kelp, algae,and seaweeds that grow underwater.

Nature offers kelp in abundance. Once these fabrics get worn out, they can serve as food to grow other fabrics.

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SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) SCOBY can be used to make fabric. You can grow millions of these microbes by feeding them sugar and tea. In this session, we will start growing a biofilm with SCOBY.

Bacterial Cells

SCOBY, or mother culture, is used to make Kombucha tea, a fermented tea with living microbes. Kombucha tea is made by brewing tea, and then adding sugar and the microbial community (SCOBY). The bacterial colony will grow as it feeds on the tea and sugar.

Yeast Cells

Intact SCOBY

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Biomaking Guide2022

Microbeal Leather In her TED talk 'Grow your own clothes’, fashion designer turned biofabrication pioneer Susan Lee introduces new ways to create sustainable fabric by using bio-collaboraton. She shares her methods of designing fabric with microbial cellulose. Lee uses a kombucha recipe, grown by feeding tea and sugar to a community of living microbes in an optimal environment. She further demonstrates how she creates beautiful three-dimensional fashion artifacts with this method which organically replaces conventional chemical-based processes.

Suzanne Lee’s Biocouture project introduces ways of collaborating with microbes to create fashion artifacts.

Activity: Growing Microbial Leather

Remember to follow safety tips!

Safety Gear Gloves,Safety Goggles, Rubbing Alcohol Spray or wipes

Materials & Equipment • Kombucha tea drink / culture (SCOBY) • Sugar (1to 2 cups) • 2 Teabags(Green/black or oolong) • Apple cider vinegar (2 tbsp) optional • An empty container with lid ( glass / plastic) • Hot water 4-6 cups (ask an adult for help) • A clean fabric or paper towel • Measuring Cup Biomaking Guide 2022

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CHAPTER 5: Food Composites Explore creative ways to transform food surplus in your house and communities into sustainable products

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Biomaking Guide2022

Rethinking Food Waste Biodegradable kitchen waste constitutes around 30 percent of all domestic waste. When it is not discarded sustainably, it can lead to problems like greenhouse gas emissions. In this chapter, we will explore creative ways to transform food surplus in your home and community into sustainable products. Let’s investigate the food waste crisis, learn about circular d esign, and design innovative biomaterials with leftovers from your kitchen.

Food is a basic human need; it nourishes us, and serves as the essential fuel for our bodies to function. It is crucial for our survival, yet millions of people worldwide are hungry or malnourished and deprived of this essential human right. When people are food insecure, it means they are not able to eat enough quality food to keep their body healthy. Almost half of the food produced globally is wasted each year, yet it is estimated that 8.9 percent of the world population is hungry or food insecure.

Food production uses a large amount of resources for growing, processing, packaging and transporting food. This negatively impacts climate, water, land and biodiversity. The Food and Agriculture Organization is a United Nations agency that focusses on ending hunger. According to an FAO report, if we could limit global food waste, we could reduce the need for food production by 60%.

Food waste goes to the landfill and releases methane gas into the environment as it decomposes, which contributes to global warming. Large hectares of land that could be potentially used for agriculture now serve as a landfill for discarded, unwanted food. Moreover, single-use plastic food packaging has significantly contributed to the waste problem. We could drastically reduce the amount of food waste that goes into landfills by redesigning packaging as biomaterials.

What if we could design new ways to create sustainable food packaging alternatives using food waste?

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Science sometimes feels like a list of things to memorize in a field where everything already has been discovered, but in reality, bioscience at the intersection of design is creative, messy, exciting and full of new horizons. We all have the opportunity to explore and play a role in shaping our Bio Future. This colourfully illustrated Biomaking guide book focuses on innovative simple biomaterial explorations that can spark, sustain, and deepen student interest in sustainability design.

COMING THIS FALL

BIOMAKING

Sustainable material solutions might arise out of collaborations with humble organisms in often-overlooked corners of nature that are low cost and relatively easy to bring into the makerspace or classroom. Fungus, kombucha, algae and the exoskeletons of insects might be essential to developing new circular design pathways.

Forward by Corinne Okada Takara (Designer & Educator at the Nest Maker Space)

PRE ORDER Brilliantlabs.ca/biomaking

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GUIDE

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BIOMAKING

Explore ways to collaborate with organisms and living systems and use them as factories to grow sustainable materials. This pictorial-style quick and easy guide is designed to spark interest in tinkering with living matter and designing creative personal projects. We present the emerging Biodesign field, its significance, and potential applications with hands-on activities. The chapters begin with a problem statement and propose how Biomaking can help us get a step closer to the solution space. The topics mentioned in this book address specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We hope to empower you to take action and achieve these goals. Some reflective prompts are embedded throughout the book to serve as an idea brainstorming diary.