Liquid-handling Lego robots and experiments for STEM education and research.
Liquid-handling Lego robots and experiments for STEM education and research.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pbio.2001413
复制
发表时间：
2017-03
期刊：
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Riedel-Kruse IH
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gerber LC;Calasanz-Kaiser A;Hyman L;Voitiuk K;Patil U;Riedel-Kruse IH
液体处理机器人在生物技术和生命科学中有许多应用，对日常生活的影响越来越大。尽管乐高头脑风暴等好玩的机器人极大地支持了机电一体化和编程方面的教育倡议，但目前还不存在与生命科学同等的联系。为了缩小这一差距，我们开发了基于乐高的移液机器人，它可以可靠地处理从1毫升到低于μL范围的液体体积，并且可以操作标准的实验室塑料器皿，如试管和多孔板。这些机器人可以支持一系列用于教育甚至研究的科学和化学实验。使用标准、低成本的家用消耗品，编程吸管程序，修改机器人设计，我们实现了丰富的活动空间。我们在小学生、初中生和高中生的课外环境中成功地测试了这些活动。最简单的机器人可以直接从广泛使用的乐高教育EV3核心组件中单独构建，本出版物包括构建和实验说明，为教育和研究的传播和进一步发展奠定基础。
Liquid-handling robots have many applications for biotechnology and the life sciences, with increasing impact on everyday life. While playful robotics such as Lego Mindstorms significantly support education initiatives in mechatronics and programming, equivalent connections to the life sciences do not currently exist. To close this gap, we developed Lego-based pipetting robots that reliably handle liquid volumes from 1 ml down to the sub-μl range and that operate on standard laboratory plasticware, such as cuvettes and multiwell plates. These robots can support a range of science and chemistry experiments for education and even research. Using standard, low-cost household consumables, programming pipetting routines, and modifying robot designs, we enabled a rich activity space. We successfully tested these activities in afterschool settings with elementary, middle, and high school students. The simplest robot can be directly built from the widely used Lego Education EV3 core set alone, and this publication includes building and experiment instructions to set the stage for dissemination and further development in education and research.