"
Team:Washington-Software
From 2009.igem.org
(The instances here are all of one module. You cannot substitute an ALPHA module and a PHI module.) |
|||
| Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
<h1> Project Goals </h1> | <h1> Project Goals </h1> | ||
| - | #Low Cost – Robot cost significantly lower than $10,000. (Actual cost: ~$700) | + | #Low Cost – Robot cost significantly lower than $10,000, the price of a commercial liquid handling robot. (Actual cost of BioBrick-a-Bot: ~$700) |
#Hardware Platform that is easily accessible. | #Hardware Platform that is easily accessible. | ||
#Hardware Design that is easily replicable by other iGEM teams. | #Hardware Design that is easily replicable by other iGEM teams. | ||
Revision as of 06:41, 21 October 2009
| Home | Team | Project | Modeling | Notebook | Challenges | Miscellaneous |
|---|
Contents |
Abstract
BioBrick-A-Bot: Lego robot for Automated BioBrick DNA Assembly
Commercial Liquid Handling Systems are extremely expensive, and are typically beyond the reach of the average molecular biologist interested in performing high throughput methods. To address this problem, we design and implement a liquid handling system built from commonly accessible Legos. Our goal is the automation of BioBrick assembly on a platform that can itself be easily replicated and we demonstrate a proof-of-principle for this system by transferring colored dye solutions on a 96-well plate. We introduce a new concept called LegoRoboBrick. The liquid handling system is build from 3 new LegoRoboBrick modular components: ALPHA (Automated Lego Pipette Head Assembly), BETA (BioBrick Environmental Testing Apparatus), and PHI (Pneumatic Handling Interface). We will demonstrate that the same BioBrick assembly software can run on multiple plug-and-play LegoRoboBrick instances with different physical dimensions and geometric configurations. The modular design of LegoRoboBricks allows easy extension of new laboratory functionalities in the future.
Project Goals
- Low Cost – Robot cost significantly lower than $10,000, the price of a commercial liquid handling robot. (Actual cost of BioBrick-a-Bot: ~$700)
- Hardware Platform that is easily accessible.
- Hardware Design that is easily replicable by other iGEM teams.
- Software Design that is robust, plug and play. Can swap modules from other iGEM teams.
- Design that is easily extensible, to allow future collaboration with other iGEM teams.
The Vision
We built BioBrick-A-Bot V1.0 as a prototype and provide a proof-of-principle demonstration that it worked. V1.0 will however, not have the full range of functionalities of a commercial liquid handling robot. V1.0 will be made up of 2 LegoRoboBrick modules, ALPHA and PHI, mounted on a chassis called BETA. We will provide construction details and software so that other iGEM team can replicate and customize their own 'bot's.
In our next version, BioBrick-A-Bot V2.0, we will provide 3 LegoRoboBrick modules, ALPHA, PHI and MU. We will also support user-defined LegoRoboBrick modules too. We provide the mechanism where other iGEM teams can collaborate together to replicate, interchange and extend LegoRoboBricks. Many iGEM teams can contribute and share both Hardware Construction and Software Programs for LegoRoboBrick modules in a Registry, much like the "Registry of Standard Biological Parts". Our vision will be to make the technologies of creating and sharing 'bots' easily available, replacing labour intensive manual work, and cost intensive machines.
Acknowledgements
Our iGEM project is sponsored by the [http://depts.washington.edu/bioe/ BioEngineering Department] at the [http://www.washington.edu/ University of Washington]
