Week 3 Lab: Opentrons

This week in lab, we used the Opentrons machine, giving us a taste of lab automation with an artistic twist. We pipetted flourescent, genetically engineered E.coli onto agar mixed with activated charcoal to create our design and canvas respectively. After a 16 hour incubation period, we were able to see images of our results under UV light! I decided to make two designs, one of the US Virgin Islands to pay homage to where I’m from, and the other was the Dark Side of the Moon Album Cover, as I thought it used a good variety of colors. The robot moved from top left to bottom right, which prompted a discussion with Ronan about the most optimal pathing system for the trajectory. The robot’s movement is controlled by a Python script, and Ronan created a website to generate the coordinates of each colored pixel, which the script implemented.