Last Updated: 7/24/18
Teaching Standards:
This module is a replica of a strand of DNA for eye color using light patterns controlled by an Arduino. The four light colors, red, green, blue, and yellow, represent the four nucleotide base pairs, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and adenine respectively. This strand of DNA for eye color was chosen because of the common mutations that occur here and what they mean for eye color. This circuit uses an infrared remote to control mutations and a game. The first three buttons show a normal DNA strand for brown eyes, and two mutations resulting in blue eyes, respectively. The power button and buttons 4, 5, and 6 on the IR remote control a game that students can use to learn the difference between substitution, deletion, and insertion mutations. Button 4 is pushed to indicate when a deletion mutation occurs in the middle loop, button 5 for a substitution, and button 6 for an insertion mutation. The serial monitor is opened in the Arduino app to tell the player/student whether their guess was correct or not. The game momentarily goes back to the default brown eyes pattern before another mutation is randomly generated and the user can guess again.
The presentation material can be downloaded at DNA Mutations Replica.