Team:Cambridge-JIC/Technology

Growth Chamber

Problem Statement

Whilst growth chambers for the cultivation of plants are widely available in a variety of configurations, from the simple cold frame to advanced climate control devices, they are generally unsuitable for growing small lower plants such as marchantia in a scientific setting. The reason for this is two-fold; as commercially produced growth chambers are usually designed to grow higher plants such as wheat, they are typically very large pieces of equipment. Furthermore, growth chambers with the ability to perform active climate control are costly and have a much greater feature set than is required for the controlled cultivation of marchantia.

In light of this, the problem statement for the Marchantia Growth Facility (MGF) was given as follows;

The task is to create a low cost device capable of cultivating marchantia by controlling the light conditions and air flow to the plants. In addition, the device must act to prevent the growth of foreign organisms on the marchantia plates, which could contaminate the specimens and hamper plant growth.

Hardware

As shown in figure , the MGF consists of a cuboidal chamber, which is divided into four subchambers. Each of the subchambers has an identical fan and lighting unit, all of which are controlled with an arduino microcontroller.

CAD Files

The hardware for the MGF was designed in VCarve Pro

Software

Description of the incubator software goes here

Assembly Instructions

Materials required; one complete set of MDF parts, one complete set of acrylic parts, one arduino microcontroller, one project box approx 100mm cubed, four 40mm square 10mm thick 5V DC fan units, twenty Adafruit flora Neopixels, one stripboard, one 5V regulator, one 9V power supply, one reel of equipment wire, one box of panel pins, one bottle of wood glue, one bottle of acrylic cement, spray paint (optional).

Begin by assembling the outer walls of the chamber onto the chamber base. First, drill holes of the same diameter as your panel pins, pitched at around 50mm around the three sides of the base that correspond to the three closed edges, and on the back edge of the two side panels. Then assemble the joint using glue and secure by knocking a pin into each pre-drilled hole. Clamp and wait until the glue has cured.

Now assemble the inner walls of the chamber as a sandwich with the outer walls. It is important to check the inner walls for a good fit before gluing, as some small adjustments may be necessary. If the interior panels are found to be slightly oversize, they can be reduced to fit using a belt sander. Once glue has been applied, clamp the joint until the glue has cured.

The assembly can now be painted, and the dividers installed. Depending on the tolerances of the MDF parts, the dividers may require some force to be installed, which can be applied with a wooden mallet without much danger to the acrylic.

Pipette Counter

Problem Statement

Unlike "dry" engineering disciplines, experimental synthetic biology involves a great deal of wet work, which carries its own set of constraints. The most significant of these is that fluid mixing is generally irreversible, a consequence of which is that errors made when performing a protocol are generally ruinous to the outcome of the experiment. A frequent cause of such errors is pipetting a reagent into an array of containers, which requires unbroken concentration from the operator in order to ensure that each container receives the correct amount and type of reagent. Not only is this difficult to achieve with near-perfect reliability, it also places strict restraints on the operator for the duration of the pipetting operation.

The problem statement for the pipette counter was therefore given as follows;

The task is to construct a device capable of acting as an aide memoir to an operator involved in serial pipetting operations. The device should be minimally invasive and run with little or no additional input from the operator.

Gel Former Jig

Problem Statement

In order to work correctly, electrophoresis gels must have two open parallel sides. This poses a problem for the fabrication of the gel, as being cast from a liquid solution, the mould used to cast the gel must have removable sides. A common solution for casting gels is to wrap the sides of the container in masking tape to form temporary walls, which can then be removed when the gel has set. The principal disadvantage of this method is that the seal formed by the tape is not water tight, which causes leaking of the gel.

The problem statement for the gel former jig was therefore given as follows;

The task is to create a jig for forming gels which does not leak during the gel solidification.

CAD Files

CAD files for the gel former

Hardware

Description of the gel former jig

Manual Assembly Instructions

lorem ipsum