Thursday 10 December 2015

Below is shown the business plan of the DNA origami simulation model.


Friday 27 November 2015

Lean Canvas Business Model

Below is shown our Lean Canvas Model, where we evaluated our possible market advantages, possible revenue streams as well as target customers and cost structures.

Wednesday 18 November 2015

Week 45


On week 45 we had some pair programming sessions, with 2 to 3 members programming in the same place at the same time. This proved to be a much efficient way of programming than just coding by oneself, as we could discuss the problems and figure out solutions together and not just in our own minds. The only problem with pair programming is finding times that suit others, as most of us are quite busy during the week as well as during some weekends.

On Friday the 6th of November there was the second lecture on Lean Start-Up. The main topic covered on the lecture was the Lean Canvas business model, which includes figuring out our problem, the solution, our key metrics, cost structures, Unique Value Propositions (UVP), unfair advantages, channels, customer segments and revenue streams. Another important topic was the revenue model, which determines how a company or a supplier of a product is compensated for each of the business service provided. Our revenue model is shown in Figure 1 below.





We had a meeting after the lecture, where we discussed the problems so far and figured some possible solutions to them. The goals were set for next week as well as the date for our next meeting. 

Week 44

On Tuesday the 27th of October we had a group meeting. The aim of the meeting was to gather our insights on the project, prepare for the pitch, set up programming partners for  the following week and to set our goals for the next few weeks. The goal was met and we agreed to meet next time on Friday the 30th of October.

On Friday we had the pitching session. We had prepared a kick-ass presentation that would have blown everyone's minds, but sadly we weren't one of the three groups chosen to present their pitches. The pitches were good and the evaluations after the pitches were even better, especially the ones given by the audience. Although we didn't get to pitch our product, we learned a lot from the session. Our subject isn't actually very 'pitchable' or marketable, as it is mostly useful for research purposes, but we learned a lot about presentations in general nonetheless. The awesome pitch slides we made can be found below.

After the session we had a meeting with our contact person, where we learned new stuff about the code and experimented around a bit with the cylinders. We are by now pretty familiar with the code and it is easy to try new stuff. However we have not yet achieved a working model with two small cylinders connected by a spherical joint as the helix. However new ideas for the approach were formed.


Week 43

This week there was no common lecture. We had a meeting with the contact person on Friday the 23rd at 2 pm. In the meeting we decided to model the helices as two shorter cylinders that are connected with a spherical joint in the middle. We also decided that we should test how the PhysX forces work and to test the forces on the helices and the joints. This is done only on some helices with some probability, and our task is also to find out which probability produces structures that are soft but still rigid enough to stay together and upright reasonably. Some sketches of the ideas about the spherical joints connecting the two cylinders are shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1. Sketches of the DNA helices from our meeting on Friday 23rd.

We decided to have a group meeting on Tuesday the 27th of October to combine our ideas and knowledge, as well as prepare for the 2-minute pitch coming up on next Friday and to set up programming partners for the next week.

Weeks 41 to 42

On week 41 we introduced ourselves independently to the code and learned how the functions in the code work and how to use them. On Friday the 9th of October we had no common lecture, but we met with the contact person. In the meeting we figured out three alternatives on how to proceed:

1. To make the DNA helices flexible by separating the cylinders into smaller pieces and connecting them together with revolute joints.
2. To modify the springs or the joints between the current helices to find a softer formation of the structure.
3. To add random forces acting on the helices to the model.

 The goals for the next week were set to get more invested in the program and study the PhysX libraries, especially the rigid body dynamics and forces and to get the programs working for everyone.

On week 42 we had a common lecture on Friday the 16th of October on the topic Lean Startup. We designed a logo for our group and wrote out the target clients and target end-users for our product. In the lecture we also made some foil hats and held a 3-minute pitch about our product. The pitch was evaluated by 2 fellow groups using the feedback capture grid, which is shown in Fig. 1. We then had an exercise on how to use the Lean Canvas model.

Figure 1: Feedback capture grid.



We had no meeting this week because of busy schedules on both sides. We decided to next meet on Friday the 23rd.