DIY robotics kit can handle liquids in lab

RESEARCHERS at Stanford University have created a set of liquid-handling robots by combining the Lego Mindstorms robotics kit available on the market with a cheap plastic syringe.

The project, reported in the journal PLOS Biology, was accomplished by Ingmar Riedel-kruse, an assistant professor of bioengineering, Lukas Gerber, a post-doctoral fellow in Riedel-kruse’s lab, with contributions from a science teacher and three high school pupils. Designed to pipette fluids from and into cuvettes and multiple-well plates, or plastic containers commonly used in laboratories, the DIY robotics kit is expected to foster interest among elementary and secondary school pupils in the “wet” sciences, namely biology, chemistry and medicine.

“We really want kids to learn by doing,” said Riedel-kruse.

“We show that with a few relatively inexpensive parts, a little training and some imagination, students can create their own liquid-handling robots and then run experiments on them – so they learn about engineering, coding and the wet sciences at the same time.”

One of the leading constructionist learning theorists in the field was Seymour Papert, whose seminal 1980 book, Mindstorms, was the inspiration for the Lego Mindstorms sets, a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group in Billund, Denmark.

Step-by-step plans

In their PLOS Biology paper, the Stanford team offers step-by-step building plans and several fundamental experiments aimed at school pupils, and also experiments they can conduct using common household consumables like food colouring, yeast and sugar.

Depending on the specific design, the robots can handle liquid volumes far smaller than one microlitre, a droplet about the size of a single coarse grain of salt.

A simple programming language allows pupils to place symbols telling the robot what to do: start, turn motor on, do a loop, etc.

The robots can support a range of educational experiments and provide a bridge between mechanical engineering, programming, life sciences and chemistry.