This year’s Olympiads orchestrated by our two new AC members Magda Cannata Serio, PhD student and Gwenn Le Meur, engineer, both from Matias Simons’s lab were a total success! With less than two months for the organization, they managed to gather prizes for the three winning teams and enough presents for all the participants!

Their efforts in making these three days of fun were successful: eight teams of six people have participated each from dozens of different labs of the Imagine Institute. During three consecutive days, at lunch time the teams gathered at the seventh floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo © Mathilda Bedin

 

Day one: the eight teams faced the first round of activities, gathered as the Dexterity test! In all these activities you could recognize situations you have already faced, from making a tip box fall to hurrying up to dress for the L2 or the animal facility.

The first exercise was to dress up and undress for the L2 or animal facility with a lab coat, shoes protection, a mask and a hygiene cap. As you all know, when you are working you should take your time while doing this! Safety first!

If you have already accidentally dropped a box of 200µL tips, you might have refilled it with tips. This very annoying task was the second exercise, where teams had to count how many boxes they could fill up in limited time!

On the next activity, sadly for me, not everybody is equally skilled: if you are lazy enough you might have tried reaching out the garbage with a paper ball from your office chair! Lucky you, this exercise was easy then and you might have succeeded in the Eppendorf tubes throw!

As you may know, the two clever organizers of this season’s Olympiads come from a Drosophila’s lab: the three racks of fly food that you have plugged with marshmallow-like tops were actually useful! So thank you all for participating especially as this was not a waste of material and quite the opposite!

And last but not least, run for the water! Teams had to fill up with water a beaker using two 50 mL Falcon tubes! The slippery floor in this exercise was the bigger danger of these Olympiads. Some teams showed us a very acrobatic way to reach the sink as they had to go under the table of the seventh floor!

As fun as it may have been, we highly recommend you not repeat this in your lab, as motivated as you may be for winning next year’s Olympiads! Running is not authorized, and no need to put on your security clothes as fast as possible: security first!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo © Laure Villoing-Gaudé and Mathilda Bedin

 

Day two: The Imagine Sports Association had organized two sets of fun sport activities. During the first one, army trained people were obviously advantaged… or the ones that regularly go to the crossfit sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (for more information, see the schedule provided on the ISA website : http://imaginesportsassociation.fr/ ). During the second part, strength and flexibility was necessary for these acroyoga exercises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo © Laure Villoing-Gaudé

 

Day three: Art, science, biology… they are not so different after all! That last day, participants faced the creativity test by making a radioactive animal!

During nearly one hour, the teams had to think about how to build an animal using laboratory material: gloves, tape, aluminium, cardboard, tips…

All the results were impressive although at the final ranking, the team “Cinquième Ciel” got the first position in this activity with their “Incredible TchernoCorn”, a kind of rainbow-colored five-legged cat with a horn. Everybody has been touched by the presence of the progenies in this creation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo © Gwenn Le Meur 

 

All the creations were very interesting both esthetically and on the variety of the materials used to make them.

These Olympiads were a very nice experience for the association as well, and we thank you all for participating or communicating on this event! We hope to see you again next year, we promise it will be as much fun!

 

Article written by Mathilda Bedin, communication for YR2I.

We thank our sponsors that offered us the first prize and the rest: Institut Imagine, Miltenyi, Dutscher, Merck, Kimtech, and New England BioLabs.