Flat Out Tables

And so the Saga continues. We still don't have a robot installed. It was a relief to find it waiting in the corridor in the morning. Or as Moran said, the good news it is still there (no one took it) and the bad news is that it is still there (no one installed it).

The crew from PVPlast who were supposed to fix the tables got stuck on the climb to Jerusalem. They managed to get here by re-filling the car heating system with water. When they got here it took a while to convince them that there was an issue, and then how to solve it.

In the end, we to go through several rounds of examining the tables with a long metal ruler until I approved their work. This took three hours and by then it was clear that the robot installation is not going to go as planned.

I give you the "dance of the flat tables"



On other news, we had Ariel, a dedicated reader of the Blog, visit in person. To make sure this is not lost on the crowd here is the relevant images from the movie.

Microscope, Robotics, Tables, and a Window

So the big day has arrived. Today the robot is finally moving into our hands. Things did not turn out exactly as planned.

 

The day started early, with Dimitry from the Eisenberg Brothers who came in to move the microscope from the molecular lab to its new station in the robotic room.

While Dimitry was moving things, a nice guy from the communication department showed up to talk about connecting the ethernet ports in the new room. I then got a long phone call from a collaborator.

A bit later, Udi Oz from Neotec and his crew showed up. They brought the Peak Robotics arm. As they started working, Danny from the computer system showed up to talk about communications and potential place to put wireless. 

Then Michel the carpenter suddenly came in to ask which doors need safety stops. As he was talking to me the Neotec people realized there is a problem with the new tables for the robot. They were not flat, and the rail for the robot arm was not sitting properly because of that.

We started consultation as to what to do about that when the delivery truck with the robot showed. The huge robot box almost blocked the corridor. 

But since the tables are not flat, we had to move to a side area so traffic will not be jammed.

As we were doing this the aluminum profile person showed up and took the temporary window in the robotic room. Michel came in and tried to see if he can help us with the tables. In the end we decided to wait until the PVPlast team shows up and fix the issues. 

Just to get a sense of the problematic aspect here, we took pictures of a straight piece of wood as one end was touching the table, the other is seen to be far from it.

These events were squeezed into five intense hours. Just to get a sense, here is a time-lapse movie of this part of the day.

This left me a bit of time to talk some issues with Udi, grab a sandwich and go to group meeting. On returning we found out that the new window is installed.

It has integrated shades inside, between two glass panels, and so allows to close or open the window easily.

Avital is Back! (and the sink is here)

Latest news from the lab. Avital, who has been studying the last month for here MSc exam, has passed the exam with high marks and is back in the lab. We all have missed her during the last few weeks.

While we are waiting for the robot to arrive, another small unresolved issue in the lab was solved. Today the sink in the robotic room was installed. 

It arrived as a nice shiny object.

The installers cut a hole in the cabinet. I was happy that this part takes place before we have sensitive equipment in the room.

The final installation is nice. 

 

Now we are waiting for the faucet installation and wall ceramics.

New Office

We are still waiting for the robot. It seems that the air-delivery company had problems getting it on the planned flight, and so it is delayed. As far as I understand it landed in Israel today or will land tomorrow. We hope to see it by Thursday.

In the mean time, we finally got locks on the doors of the new part of the lab. This means that we can start using the room. One of them is a small office for myself or Ayelet. For the next few months I will be using it most of the the time. 

The office is very small 2.5m x 2.5m. But it has two big external windows with light, and a large window into the robot room. For now the furniture in the office is really minimal. I already used for a conference call to the States and for few discussions (one even involving three of us) and it was fine.

From the robotics room the office looks like that. 

The sharp of eye will note that the window between the rooms does not look finish. This is a temporary window that will be replaced with a double glazed window that can be shaded for privacy or when we want to limit the light in the robotic room.

The stage is almost set, waiting for the actors

After long period of very slow developments, the last two days saw frenetic activity. I am away on a trip to Edinburgh (to attend the International Conference on Systems Biology), and so had to hear about the developments by remote control. All the images here were taken by Assaf, serving as my remote eyes.

Yesterday bright and early (before anyone showed up to work) the nice people from PVPlast came in and start installing the work-benches for the robotic room. The design was non-trivial, but they delivered it perfectly. By 2pm they finished and left.

Today, we had the electricity contractors come in to finish the electricity installation, as there is a non-trivial amount of electric/communication outlets that are mounted on the workbenches. 

Few pictures of the work as it progressed today.

The table with the hole is going to hold the robotic-arm-on-a-rail. (The hole is for throwing out used plates.) The table next to it is the "heavy" table for the microscope. This table is not attached to any of the others to avoid vibrations. The bench next to wall is going to hold the microscope monitors and control boxes.

Here we see the tables where the liquid handling robot will sit and the FACS. The table that run in angle to them is the robotic arm table, and in the foreground we see the corner of the microscope table. The clean hood is sitting over the liquid handling table and the end of the robotic arm table, and will enclose this area with super-clean air. The long hole between the two tables will serve for cables. In the background you can see the workbench that will serve for sample preparation, and might also hold some of the equipment monitors. Here is another view of this bench and the clean hood.

Since there many devices will sit on these tables we needed to supply them with electricity and communications. Thus, there is an electricity panel below the robotic table (all along its length).

These cable come from connection boxes along the wall. Thus, there is another panel between the long arm table and the robotic table.

From there the cables go down below the microscope table and all the way to the wall. From the side this look like this.

At the other end of the microscope table the cables come from the rack into another panel. The important part of this construction is that the rack itself is "floating" below the microscope table without actually touching it (so not pass any vibrations).

On the wall the cables are distributed to the various connection boxes (each one housing cables fed from the main electricity and communication boards.

While they were here, the electricians also installed the benchtop lights that we have been waiting for for a long time. Let there be light!

Clean Tent

One of the main worries regarding the robotic setup is contamination from the environment. Since the robot works with media and open plates, such contamination can ruin many experiments. We started by thinking of housing the robot in a clean room. This however was very expensive and would require harsh operating conditions. The solution we came up with is to have the robotic room over-pressurized, so that dust and contaminants are pushed out. In addition, the robot parts that involve sterile work will be housed inside a "clean tent".

Today the tent arrived, in pieces.

The technicians quickly assembled the heavy aluminum framework (which was interesting to watch).

Then they loaded on top of it the filter units. 

Each unit filters air through a series of filters and pushes it downwards. As a result the insides of the tent are continually "washed" by very clean air and kept clean. To close off the relevant volume, the tent has plastic sheet flaps that allow access inside but keep the bulk of the clean air going down in a laminar flow.

The next week the tables and benches for the robot will be installed, and then the stage will be set for the main player.

Lab Party!

The holidays are over, and everyone gathered back from the four corners of the earth they dispersed to. To celebrate the start of a new year we had a party. The theme was Italian Food.

Ariel made fresh fettuccine in three colors.

Moran, who just returned from Italy, made pizza dough and baked a series of fresh pizza on the premises. One problem is that by the time the pizza tray left the kitchen it was mostly empty, as the smell of the pizza coming out of the oven lured people to come and "taste" the creation.

We set up a WII station in the yard, and although the screen was far from perfect (a tablecloth) we did see some heated action.

The less happy part of the event was to say goodbye to few people. Ruty and Aharon who are finishing their M.Sc. and continuing to other things, and Ohad and Julia who finished their B.Sc. project with us. 

The dessert table was exciting and managed to cheer everyone up. 

We had a surprise appearance by Matan, a lab alumni, who showed his powers and cradled babies. 

And we ended the evening with an optimistic smile.