Last week we installed a new external hotel to hold plates. Yesterday Shai Kaplan and Assaf programmed the KiNEDx to recognize the hotel coordinates. Today Assaf put the new device to use by building a program to perform cherry-picking from individual wells from the whole yeast library. Thus, saving himself the need to go into specific wells in 16 plates, each with 384 wells.
The program worked nicely, and we can see a short part of it in this movie.
We did learn few important lessons about hotels. First, manually loading places onto it can be tricky. If you are not careful it is easy to drop a plate. Second, the installation is a bit too close to the KiNEDx rail, and so we might try to move the hotel back a bit.
In addition, Assaf will try to parallelize the program so it brings the next plate while working with the previous one, and so on.
One of the big issues in running large experiments on the robot is managing plasticware. As the experiment progresses we need to use new plates, and these have to be stored somewhere until then.
To solve this issue, we decided to introduce hotels -- racks that can store multiple plates. Since we have an external arm (the KiNEDx), we ordered a hotel that can be accessed by the arm. This allows us to have a larger hotel and make it also more accessible for humans.
We decided to start with a single hotel to see how it works. Several weeks ago we received it, and then had a meeting with the nice people from the mechanical workshop to discuss how to mount it. Today they showed up with the "stage". It is large enough to hold five hotels in the end.
After installation, we have a nice hotel standing up. Next, we need to teach the robotic arm to access it.
The last week I was away on travel. During the week Shai (from Neotec) together with Avital & Assaf worked on robotic programing and hopefully we will have updates from that front.
In addtion, Udi and Yoram from Neotec manufactured a nice station for handoff between the Tecan Liquid Handling Robot and the KiNEDx robotic arm. Today Shai together with Amir and Moshe (also from neotec) worked on fine tuning the integration of the robotic arm into the Tecan control software.
At the end of the day we managed to film a demonstration in which using EvoWare (the Tecan control software) we can take a plate from the deck of the Tecan to the microscope/hypercyt and back. This means that we made a significant step toward integrating the system.
It is impressive to see the KiNEDx arm in action. Its movements are fast and fluid.
From the movie you will also notice that we hang the plastic curtains that surround the Tecan and keep it clean and sterile. We still need to tailor a hole for the KiNEDx to move through, so for now the enclosure is not complete.
Just to get a sense of the flurry of activity that led to these results, here is a time-lapse of part of that day.
After two delays, today was finally the day. Early in the morning Udi and Arik from Neotec showed up for installation. After re-checking that the tables are flat, we set out to install the robot.
The first step was to unbox the robot from the huge shiping box.
All empty space inside the device was full of a box with various accessories. It took a while to realize that we don't have any hope of pulling it out as one box, and we resorted to removing the contents one-by-one.
Now we could start seeing the shape of the device, Tecan Evo 200, and admire it.
Next, Udi and Arik connect special handles to the robot frame.
We recruited Alon from the lab and Ayelet and set out to lift the Tecan (220kg according to Udi) onto the smallish cart that the Neotek people brought with them.
Somewhat surprisingly, the cart held the weight, and we slowly moved the procession into the room and next to the table.
A bit of a coordinated heave, and the Tecan was on the table. Few more adjustments and it was located into place.
The curious people could now examine the details of the labels.
We then had a small unwrapping ceremony where we got a chance to remove all plastic protectors from the robot outer shell.
Shy, who is the main software integrator showed up and joined the party. Arik set out to installing the device. This involved removing safety brackets and unlocking the arms. It didn't take long for him to get to a stage where he set the device on a "Random Walk" mode. In this mode the robot tries moving the arms to different X/Y/Z locations to see that there are no obsticles or mechanical problems. It was fun to watch and gave a good impression of what the machine can do.
While the main Tecan was playing at random walk, Udi and Arik started assembling the movable arm. Its called Peak Robotic KiNEDx. It has a flexible gripper that can hold plates and move them from the Tecan to the microscope.
Once Udi managed to get the arm to move, we tested how far it can reach. We had to move the microscope a bit, but now the stage is in reach of the arm.
During this whole procession, Shy started working on interfacing with the external device. He had a quick success in interfacing with the microscope and in no time managed to show that he can control it from the driver he wrote. So, we are hopeful that the integration would be smooth.
And finally, the obligatory stop-motion film of the day's highlights. Given requests from the audience, I edited the sequence to be short and include the main interesting points. Enjoy!
