Biodesign is an emerging transdisciplinary field that engages non-biologists in working with living systems. This poses a range of challenges for biodesign education, as traditional teaching methods between life sciences and other disciplines remain poorly aligned. Particularly, education models for training mixed-background student cohorts remain underdeveloped. Drawing on an experimental design research workshop with an interdisciplinary group of students, four barriers to entry were identified: biological uncertainty, knowledge asymmetry, delegation dynamics and temporal mismatch. This paper reports on classroom observations and proposes the introduction of a translational teaching tool as a method for lowering the entry threshold to biodesign through scaffolded practical training. The tool aims to reinterpret scientific standard operating procedures as Biodesign Manuals – assembly-manual-style, visual instructional devices that translate tacit laboratory knowledge into transdisciplinary workflows.
