Team:BostonU HW/Improve

Improve

• Neptune
• MARS

Improving on Neptune

The control syringe system we implemented in TERRA was repurposed from the 2016 Boston University iGEM Hardware Team, Neptune. Neptune designed an end to end design suite for continuous flow microfluidics, which helped automate the microfluidic design process. The team coupled this design software with DIY syringe pumps hardware, which are responsible for inputting flow into the microfluidic chip, to increase the accessibility of microfluidics due to the high cost of retail syringe pumps.

Our team decided to repurpose Neptune’s syringe pump hardware to develop our control syringe system because they already went through the process of designing and validating a DIY platform for automating syringe movement. In addition, since the syringe pumps were used to gradually push a syringe to dispense at a constant rate, they were able to demonstrate a high degree of controllability with their hardware platform. This gave us the confidence to reuse their hardware platform for our control syringe system in TERRA.

However, because of the difference in application between Neptune and TERRA, we needed to update the software operating the syringes. TERRA’s control syringe system is responsible for actuating control valves on the TERRA Adapter as opposed to inputting constant flow. In addition, the control syringes needed to work alongside the other components of TERRA, particularly the XY Plane and UI. To accomplish this the control syringes system needed to be able to sustain on/off states based on the output selection system on the TERRA Adapter in order to dispense the proper product into the vessel. In order to execute this, we programmed the servo motors for the syringes to move and hold certain positions based on the experiment protocol given by the user. These positions would last for a certain duration, depending on how long an output is selected for. Then, based on the experiment protocol from the UI, these on/off states were coupled with specific outputs on the microfluidic chip to control which when they would be dispensed and how much. These improvements to the software enables us to reuse the hardware for a wider range of applications, and thus adding additional value to these DIY syringe pumps.

To learn more about how the control syringe system works visit:

Improving on MARS

Adding to the MARS Repository