[Lhs-biohacking] Trustees elections and “Stuff that needs doing” in the biolab

[Tom Hodder]

Hi Biohackers,

Apologies about not sending an update email for ages... This is not really a proper update, but just a quick shoutout reminder about the trustees election, and a list of stuff that would be good to improve the current state of the lab.

I guess one of the main things on the TODO list at the moment is that the lab is starting to get a bit tatty, and I think it needs some TLC to get it back to its former glory. I've started a list below, and I'll work on them as I can, but feel free to help out, or make suggestions on things that would improve how the lab looks and functions.

Trustee Elections

So just a quick reminder that the Hackspace trustees election voting closes tomorrow at 10pm (I think??) and that I am running for one of the places. Woo!

The list of candidates is here, and to vote you need to use the link that was sent via an email with the title "London Hackspace 2015 Election" and it was sent about midday on 15th November.

Also I think that looking ahead, as the lease on the Hackney Road premises is up in 2018, it’s likely that the Biohackspace will have to move along with the Hackspace at that time. It would be good to have as much trustee level influence on that process when the time comes, so If you haven’t voted yet, then now is the time to get that done!

I’d also like to mention that Andy Tidman is also running for election, and he has been a great contributor to the biolab in the short time he has been a hackspace member. Andy machined the replacement part that was required for the Stuart shaking incubator, and he sourced a part from Russia for the new big microscope, and has been super enthusiastic about helping out with other technical issues.

Another candidate who has been a great help in providing workshop help for projects is Dean Forbes.  Despite Dean’s bombastic approach on the mailing list, he has trained a bunch of biohackers on the lathe and the MIG, and helped out with machining projects. Dean is also the Workshop committee chairman at the society of model engineers, and he recently managed their workshop renovation which has been a pretty impressive feat, and it would be good to see similar improvements to the Hackspace workshop.

Stuff to do

Paint exposed bare wood surfaces in lab - It’s a requirement of various lab regulations that surfaces should be covered with chemical and microbial resistant finish that can be easily cleaned. At the moment there is quite a bit of exposed bare wood.

Fix holes in door - There are some holes in the door from old door handle. Maybe fill this with caulk and paint it over?

Move the 5ft fluorescent tube fitting from the wall, to the ceiling - Andy offered to put some shelves up on the wall next to the fridge. however there is a light fitting there, so it needs moving.

More/Bigger shelves - it would be good to put up some more shelves, wherever there is space. Or replace the current ones with bigger, wider, shelf boards.

General clean out of junk There is a lot of stuff on the shelves in the lab that hasn't been touched or used for years. It would be good to have a sort through that, as we are now getting pretty short of space for projects.

Stuff thats happened

We got some chemo-luminescence photography kit from UCL, and a gene imaging unit;

​

Serge has been looking at Paramecia;
https://twitter.com/SergeVuille/status/660111732560551936

Zerahiah has been working on a system to automate colony counting on images of cultures on petri dishes;

There is quite a bit of other stuff going on, such as workshops with Edo, but I didn't have the photos. Please checkout slack for more information etc;

https://biohackspace.org/slack   <- sign up address for slack

or to access the general channel;
https://biohackspace.slack.com/messages/general/

Cheers,

Tom

[tim w]

Hi Tom,

thanks for the update, however I noticed in the pic that you now have a syngene imaging unit, this is the one we have been discussing! (well another one). In this case do you want another?

cheers

tim

---

From: t...@limepepper.co.uk
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2015 22:56:51 +0000
To: lhs-bio...@lists.kentgeek.org; mem...@biohackspace.org
Subject: [Lhs-biohacking] Trustees elections and “Stuff that needs doing” in the biolab

_______________________________________________ Lhs-biohacking mailing list Lhs-bio...@lists.kentgeek.org https://lists.kentgeek.org/mailman/listinfo/lhs-biohacking

[Tom Hodder]

On 29 November 2015 at 14:51, tim w <timon...@hotmail.com> wrote:

thanks for the update, however I noticed in the pic that you now have a syngene imaging unit, this is the one we have been discussing! (well another one). In this case do you want another?

The one in the image seems to have a fault, and its not detected by the PC. So if your one is working OK, then its probably more useful than the one we have at the moment. also the UV illumination box is valuable as a standalone unit, so we'd probably scrap this one and keep the UV box, and use the working one instead.