13th BioCon, 14th Bio-Creative Design Contest held online

Teams and presentations

Each of the following teams gave a 12-minute presentation which included a short Q&A session.

Team / school name	Presentation title
Wanna fry waffles Sagamihara Secondary School	Excite with sight!! - How to see living things -
spread wings Seishin Gakuen High School	Insects Fly!
Shintaro Mitani School of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Tech	Toilet's surface reflects disease
Kuro-chan and the giant colony Atsugi Senior High School	Top Bacteria Budokai
Ocha Five Ochanomizu University Senior High School	Virus sugoroku
Spectacles. Sagamihara Secondary School	Fish are people's ancestors!? - How humans came to be -
TBC Toin Gakuen	Creating an ecological map of Toin Gakuen
E School of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Tech	Sustainable society with leftover cooking oil
Good friends Yokohama Science Frontier High School	Let's learn from Toxic Crossing
Animal Kingdom Ochanomizu University Senior High School	UNOMU
Coral reef Azabu University High School	Making eco-friendly sunscreen
Hayato Mitsudome School of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Tech	Electricity and genes - Does electricity alter gene expression? -
You buggin? Seishin Gakuen High School	The wonders of carnivorous plants
separated color Azabu University High School	The challenge of color separation!

Bio-play session

After the presentations, approximately 40 young students, mostly from elementary school, were invited to test out the groups' creations during the traditional bio-play session. Despite the online environment required by COVID-19, the youngsters were able to experience bioscience and biotechnology through interesting and challenging games.

Evaluation and competition results

Two Tokyo Tech faculty members and five evaluators from outside the Institute selected winners and runners-up in the competitions. BioCon participants were judged based on four criteria — scientific nature, originality, societal impact, and expressiveness. and completeness. Bio-Creativity Design Contest were evaluated based on the four criteria above and completeness. Students, faculty members, and bio-play session participants cast their votes to determine the winners of the Audience Award and Poster Presentation Award.

This year, the Ochanomizu University Senior High School team Ocha Five, who participated for the first time, won both the BioCon and the Bio-Creativity Design Contest with their work on viruses.

BioCon results

Winner

Ocha five, Ochanomizu University Senior High School

2nd place

Spectacles, Sagamihara Secondary School

3rd place

separatedcolor

Yokohama City Board of Education Award

Coral reef

Bio-Creativity Design Contest results

Winner

Ocha five, Ochanomizu University Senior High School

Judges' Award

E, Tokyo Tech

Animal Kingdom, Ochanomizu University Senior High School

Societal Impact Award

Ocha five, Ochanimizu University Senior High School

Experiment Award

Hayato Mitsudome, Tokyo Tech

Audience Award

Wanna fry waffles, Sagamihara Secondary School

Poster Presentation Award

Kuro-chan and the giant colony, Atsugi Senior High School

After the contest and presentation of awards, the participating students had a chance to exchange opinions freely with the judges. Despite the online environment, the final result of the event was equivalent to that of previous years — new teaching materials that will undoubtedly be useful in the future.

Team separate color's presentation

Winning team Ocha five presenting

School of Life Science and Technology
—Unravel the Complex and Diverse Phenomena of Life—
Information on School of Life Science and Technology inaugurated in April 2016

School of Life Science and Technology

Schools, Departments, and Institute for Liberal Arts