I remember reading about OpenWorm a few years ago and thinking it was ridiculously cool. I'm glad to see the project has persisted. They do a bad job, however, of selling themselves.
1. What have they accomplished to date? I see little more than an animated worm. Tell me about how you're trying to model the worm, and how these approaches may accurately capture its behavior.
2. Why should I care about having an animated worm in my browser? Why is this an appropriate medium to deliver the simulation? If I want to do any kind of science, how will this help me? What I've seen to date looks scarcely more useful than Bonzi Buddy. The most interesting part seems the Academy, but I must donate at least $250 to gain access. This seems counter to the "open" part of "OpenWorm."
3. What academic affiliations does the project have? If the project is useful and has experienced success to date, surely they can recruit students/postdocs/whatever to work on it full-time, with well-established labs making major contributions. Are they computational people? Biology people?
4. What are the bona fides of the people involved? If they can't typeset or capitalize the species' name properly ("C. Elegans") in their video, that doesn't lend much faith to their expertise. The gentleman in the video marvels over the mere "1000 cells" in the worm, but does nothing to put this number in context (with, say, the 10 trillion cells of humans).
I'd love to see this project succeed, and I admire its attempt to recruit funding through a novel means, but the pricing seems too steep, and the overall quality of the pitch is regrettably poor.
1. What have they accomplished to date? I see little more than an animated worm. Tell me about how you're trying to model the worm, and how these approaches may accurately capture its behavior.
2. Why should I care about having an animated worm in my browser? Why is this an appropriate medium to deliver the simulation? If I want to do any kind of science, how will this help me? What I've seen to date looks scarcely more useful than Bonzi Buddy. The most interesting part seems the Academy, but I must donate at least $250 to gain access. This seems counter to the "open" part of "OpenWorm."
3. What academic affiliations does the project have? If the project is useful and has experienced success to date, surely they can recruit students/postdocs/whatever to work on it full-time, with well-established labs making major contributions. Are they computational people? Biology people?
4. What are the bona fides of the people involved? If they can't typeset or capitalize the species' name properly ("C. Elegans") in their video, that doesn't lend much faith to their expertise. The gentleman in the video marvels over the mere "1000 cells" in the worm, but does nothing to put this number in context (with, say, the 10 trillion cells of humans).
I'd love to see this project succeed, and I admire its attempt to recruit funding through a novel means, but the pricing seems too steep, and the overall quality of the pitch is regrettably poor.