Description
This is modeled after the TV show Survivor and has been running in the lab for 7 years. We rent a cottage for a winter/spring weekend in Deep River, ON. Basically 3-4 teams of 3-4 people are given a quirky "call for proposals" and are given less than 1 day to develop the project, budget, etc. Teams pitch the proposal using a brief powerpoint presentation. Teams (which include the P.I., PDFs and graduate student as participants) compete for research funding: each person adds 3$CDN of their own money (=$15K "NSERC dollars") to the pot for the main prize. Each project is evaluated and the team with the highest score wins the prize. The idea is to instill the collaborative spirit, stimulate the imagination and have a bit of fun.
For the 2010 competition there were proposals for (a) developing ecologically friendly salmon farming by Team-Poutine, (b) "Super-barley" for a healthy environment by the Incredible Dream Team, and (c) for ecosystem-level manipulative experiments to determine the effects of climate change on freshwater streams by Team-Extreme. It was team-Poutine who won with their proposal to develop traps for sea lice using pheromone-attractants.