Team:Madrid-OLM/HardwareElectronics

• Team
  • Members
  • Attribution
  • Sponsors
• Project
  • Description
  • Contribution
  • Improve
  • Demonstrate
  • Judging Form
• Aptamers
  • Overview
  • Discovery
  • Characterization
  • Computational
    Improvement
  • Binding to Electrode
• Device
  • Overview
  • First Prototype
  • Final Prototype
    • Overview
    • Microfluidics
    • Electronics
• Experiments
  • Interlab
  • Protocols
    • Aptamer Related
    • Manufacturing
• Human Practices
  • Integrated Human Practice
  • Education and
    Engagements
  • Collaborations
• Awards
  • Hardware
  • Applied Design
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Measurement
• Medals

Electronics

The final version of the device integrates multiples features. Each one of these characteristics come with its own platform and its own firmware.

We have chosen each one of them with the essential characteristic of being Arduino compatible. The final device looks like a patchwork, with all the different platforms working together to accomplish the main objective: automate the measurement of the electrode.

Hardware

The hardware is mainly composed of different modules, interconnected for two main purposes: distributing the powers rails through all the modules and communicating each module with the main controller.

Figure 3: Agarose gel after 10 cycles of amplification.

1. The hardware is mainly composed of different modules, interconnected for two main purposes: distributing the powers rails through all the modules and communicating each module with the main controller.

2. Optical measurement sensor. The materials required to test our sensor were a 280nm UV LED emitter and an LDR. The amount of light traversing the solution was quantified by a drop in voltage across the LDR: with higher protein concentrations, higher absorption is expected together with an increased drop in voltage.

3. Microfluidics: for channeling fluids through the chip. Microfluidics allows us to move microliters of samples, minimizing the dead volumes and the waste through the chip.

4. Modular design and normalization: We needed to standardize the protocols related to hardware to reduce the number of variables involved. This would restrict the design and manufacture and help us a lot when playing with certain design parameters.

5. Enable the DIY: We had the need of developing everything in a way such that anyone, regardless his/her origin could replicate our experiments in an affordable and creative way.

Software

1. Immobilized aptamers on a PDMS surface. In order to create an electrostatic and mechanical trap for our targeted protein, we planned to work in a PDMS environment. PDMS is a well-known manufacturing material for electronics. So we could easily integrate PDMS in our device.

2. Optical measurement sensor. The materials required to test our sensor were a 280nm UV LED emitter and an LDR. The amount of light traversing the solution was quantified by a drop in voltage across the LDR: with higher protein concentrations, higher absorption is expected together with an increased drop in voltage.

3. Microfluidics: for channeling fluids through the chip. Microfluidics allows us to move microliters of samples, minimizing the dead volumes and the waste through the chip.

4. Modular design and normalization: We needed to standardize the protocols related to hardware to reduce the number of variables involved. This would restrict the design and manufacture and help us a lot when playing with certain design parameters.

5. Enable the DIY: We had the need of developing everything in a way such that anyone, regardless his/her origin could replicate our experiments in an affordable and creative way.