Generic Lab Equipment

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Revision as of 14:09, 5 September 2015 by Dusjagr (talk | contribs) (Do It Yourself Lab Equipment)
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Links to projects for making your own lab equipment on the hackteria wiki

Overview of some of our lab tools made using digital manufacturing tools, by GaudiLabs

To start up an independent and open lab it is crucial to get affordable lab equipment. Most of the tools we use are do it your self (DIY) and open source and are built from widely available and recycled parts found in consumer products such as DVD drives, hard disks and pc fans. Building the specific devices further helps to understand the basic principles behind and learn more about the technologies and methods used. The discussions among scientists and engineers in the process of rethinking the devices to make them more accessible are very fruitful and often lead to new and innovative designs. - Urs Gaudenz

Lab tools

Related projects

  • biodesign for the real world a collaborative project on open source hardware for education and citizen science see more on the Biodesign.cc website

Slideshows

Important Readings

  • Beyond Black Boxes by Resnick, et al

Beyond Black Boxes: Bringing Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Investigation, Resnick, et al, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2000

BeyondBlackBox.png

We present a set of case studies in which students create, customize, and personalize their own scientific instruments – and thus become engaged in scientific inquiry not only through observing and measuring but also through designing and building. While computational technologies have, in general, contributed to making today’s scientific instruments more “opaque ” (that is, less understandable) and less aesthetically-pleasing than their predecessors, we argue that these same technologies can be used to bring back a sense of transparency and aesthetics to the design of scientific instruments. We analyze how students, by building their own scientific instruments, can: pursue a broader range of scientific investigations of their own choosing, feel a stronger sense of personal investment in their scientific investigations, and develop deeper critical capacities in evaluating scientific measurements and knowledge.

Constructionist approach. In most MBL activities, students use pre-built instruments; similarly, many “home science” books focus on pre-designed demonstrations and experiments. BBB activities take a different approach: students are encouraged to construct and program the instruments that they use – and to design their own experiments.

Syntheses of "Beyond Black Boxes" put together by dusjagr and discussions with all of you.

  • Lab Making, by Urs Gaudenz, Sachiko Hirosue

File:Lab Making 20140918.pdf

"Making a Laboratory is both a spontaneous activity and a slow labor of love."

  • Open-Source Lab by J. Pearce, et al.

Pearce, Joshua. 2013. “Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs”. 1 edition. Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier.

This guide details the development of the free and open-source hardware revolution and provides you with step-by-step instructions on building your own laboratory hardware.

See more on Appropedia Open-Source Lab

Various Recent and Historic Books

Another nice list was compiled during HLab14 Library

Various from the resources of Arvind Gupta

See loads of good stuff on Arvind Gupta's Website

Low Cost Equipment for Science and Technology Eduction,

COMPILED BY UNESCO Make school science equipment using inexpensive materials.

New UNESCO Sourcebook for Science Teaching, 1973

Do It Yourself Lab Equipment

A Low-Cost Approach to PCR, Eva Harris, 1998

Low-cost approach to PCR.jpg

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique used to replicate specific pieces of DNA millions of times, which permits the detection and analysis of minute amounts of nucleic acids. Since its introduction in the late 1980s, this technique has been applied not only in molecular biology research but also in fields as diverse as anthropology, phylogeny, and forensics. However, despite the large impact of PCR, many of its applications remain within the confines of research and the academic environment. Now, in A Low-Cost Approach to PCR: Appropriate Transfer of Biomolecular Techniques, Dr. Eva Harris makes this elegantly simple technique more accessible to researchers, physicians, and laboratory workers throughout the world. She provides a description of the theoretical basis of the technique, the practical details of the method, and the philosophy behind the technology transfer program that she developed over the last ten years.

Download File:Low cost approach to PCR - 2007.pdf


Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory, Raymond E. Barrett, 1963 and Reprint 2015 by MAKE

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Raymond E. Barrett's Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory took on an audacious task: to show readers how to build a complete working science lab (starting with a workbench) for chemistry, biology, and physics--and how to perform experiments with those tools. The experiments in this book may appear fearless and bold by today's standards, but many from previous generations fondly remember how we as a society used to approach scientific learning. Updated for today's world with annotations and sourcing notes by Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, prepare to read (and use) this classic to reinvigorate scientific exploration at school and at home.

Links to other pages

Appropedia - Building research equipment with free, open-source hardware

Most experimental research projects are executed with a combination of purchased hardware equipment, which may be modified in the laboratory and custom single-built equipment fabricated inhouse. However, the computer software that helps design and execute experiments and analyze data has an additional source: It can also be free and open-source software (FOSS). FOSS has the advantage that the code is openly available for modification and is also often free of charge. In the past, customizing software has been much easier than custom-building equipment, which often can be quite costly because fabrication requires the skills of machinists, glassblowers, technicians, or outside suppliers. However, the open-source paradigm is now enabling creation of open-source scientific hardware by combining 3D printing with open-source microcontrollersW running on FOSS. These developments are illustrated below by several examples of equipment fabrication that can better meet particular specifications at substantially lower overall costs.


BioHack Academy - Waag Society, Amsterdam and global

The age of personal biotechnology is upon us! Engineers have turned biology in a design discipline and it's now up to us to shape it's applications. After completing the BioHack Academy you can grow your own fuel, food, filaments, farmaceuticals, fragances, fungi and much more funky bio stuff at home. We'll teach you how to join the bio revolution and build your own biofactory using a Fablab, Maker/Hackspace or other shared machine shop.

Learn how to design, grow and extract your own biomaterials using only Open Source hardware you fabricate yourself. Whether it's a new type of bio ink, bio polymer or bio fuel, we'll show you can grow it yourself and share the results with others.


Citizen of Science

With the use of recycled and second-hand items I hope that individuals and teachers will use this blog to bring back the joys of doing science. Warning - I am not responsible for any damage or injuries obtained while using any information from this blog. This is for information purposes only.