#SOURCECODE
Description - This project was all based around DNA, genotypes, and coding. We worked hard in groups of 4-5 to make a code from scratch that would compare a set of genotypes to deliver it's ancestry and susceptibility of disease. In each group there was a bionformaticist, biologist, artist, and project manager. I was project manager for my group, Obi-Wan. We all had Star Wars character names for our group names because that's what it's like in the actual work field. We had a lot of help from Mackenzie's, our teacher's, husband. He's a local bioinformaticists and actually did some of the ancestry parts of the project for us since we don't have the knowledge or technology to find it all on our own. In the process of our project we ended up with three main products, which were an infographic, a piece of code art, and the final code. We got real genotypes from a website called OpenSNP.org, where people basically upload their sequenced genotypes. To get your DNA sequenced you can use many companies/websites, the one we personally looked at was 23andMe. You can send in a cup of saliva, or something odd like that, because it has DNA, and they'll give you back your genotype. After downloading some random person's sequenced genotype from OpenSNP we got to work. We had to compare genotypes in order to compare a couple thousand people's genotypes to our sample's genotype to realize where they came from. In order to compare these genotypes we had to reformat one of them to fit and look like the other, once that was done, we moved on to the actual comparing. This was all done by code because it would take forever my hand. For the infographic, it had to include the ancestry of our person as well as one out of about 22,000 susceptible diseases. This had to be done while making the infogrphic appealing to the eyes as well. The code art was the funnest part, using our code we had to make the design of our character, from our group name, and in a way trace them. This was, again, using all code!
My Role - As stated in the project description, I was project manager. I was given the opportunity to be a project manager and really stand up to the plate for the first time since probably middle school. I tried really hard to make sure everything worked out as smooth as possible for my group, as well as for others. I worked very hand in hand with all my group members. With the bioinformaticist, Cristina, I worked with on the actual code. It was probably the most stressful part of the project and I'm glad I got to ease the load by helping her with anything she might need. The biologist, Anna, was in charge of the actual ancestry and disease research, their job was to find out the possible diseases and ancestry our "person" contained. The artist, Nayel, was solely in charge of really finding out what how to place things on our infographic and what made sense as well as what was actually needed and what could be cut. The biologist and artist worked more together, as I, the project manager, with the bioinformaticist. Through all the roles I think I played them all more than once and it was very rewarding knowing that we all worked together and my groups outcomes were great.
Challenges - The biggest challenge that I faced was probably stepping up to even being project manager. That was definitely my biggest concern for not letting my group down and making sure that everything I did with them was with 110% effort. I tried really hard and I think that my hard work payed off. I really enjoyed working with my group and we all stayed on the same page the entire time. Another challenge was keeping up with all the work that seemed to be based on my shoulders, especially at the beginning of the project. i think that I ended up adapting and I really enjoyed being project manager but managing my work and time to others in my group was definitely something different but I actually enjoyed being able to in a way control and work with the final products the whole step of the way.
Lessons - What I learned was time management for sure. I think that being manager and kind of in charge of myself really showed me that I need to be on top of myself in and out of class. I thought I could do this whole project in class but Codecademy really taught me differently. Codecademy.com is a website that lets you do coding in Python, which is a type of computer language. It was a very long and hard process but Having a certain percentage due every week really taught me to not do it all in one night but to space out my workload. Another lesson that I'll really value is to help others, whether in my group or not, I know that when I was done with Codecademy and our actual code I went out and helped others because I knew how much I struggled with it. I think this project really taught me the whole "Treat others the way you want to be treated", work-wise at least.