Known as “UBC’s beer-brewing design team”, Biological Internet of Things (BIoT) has expanded to include a variety of projects in process control, R&D, and automation, including building a miniature chemical plant for the ChemE Cube competition, IoT process automation devices, and experimental research projects in food technology like making glow-in-the-dark beer.
Meet the Subteams
ChemE Cube Team
The ChemE Cube sub-team was founded in January 2026 to represent UBC in the ChemE Cube competition hosted by RAPID | ExxonMobil at the Annual AIChE Student Conference. They will design and build a chemical plant within a cubic foot that performs direct air capture (DAC), which they will present at the competition through a live demo, a 20 minute shark-tank style pitch, a 1-minute video, and a technical poster, all while competing against teams from all over the world.
Instrumentation Team
The instrumentation team is responsible for creating equipment to sense brew data and automate tasks associated with the brewing process, and culminate it into a central web app. Common parameters to control are temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and specific gravity.
Brew Team
The brew team is responsible for the brewing process itself, including recipe development, brewing, and quality control. They work closely with the lab and instrumentation teams to ensure that the brewing process is optimized for the best possible beer.
Lab Team
The lab team is responsible for developing and running assays to analyze the beer at various stages of the brewing process. This includes measuring parameters like yeast viability, sugar content, and alcohol content, as well as developing new assays to better understand the brewing process.