Antibiotic Resistance

Project Description: This project was funded by Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy (SELA) and was one component to a larger project titled “Project 2050”. Project 2050 was a break-out room style game that showcased the world in 2050 and some of the major concerns facing modern day society if no solutions were found and in comparison to the world in 2050 if engineers used innovative techniques to manage such issues. The theme’s that were included in Project 2050 were: natural disasters, food scarcity, antibiotic resistance, water shortage and renewable energy.

Project Overview: Team antibiotic resistance designed an evolving backdrop that had simple bacteria representing today’s bacteria and as time went on up to the year 2050 the bacteria became much more complex. Simultaneously we designed holes in the backdrop that would be a match to the design of an antibiotic. The participant playing this game would have a round ball with many Velcro spaces and tiny building blocks of various colors and shapes that can attach to the ball. As the year’s progress to 2050, the design specifications of the antibiotics to kill the complex bacteria were much more complex than the design specifications of the first antibiotic. Such design specifications included only using specific colors or shapes, only using one color with a certain shape, only stacking specific colors on top of each other, etc.

This project engaged with the community at large and was an interactive tool to educate people about why antibiotic resistance is important and how not only the scientific community, but also the general public can fight against it.