Digital Designs and Scientific Hardware - Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs - page 240

and sports a tardigrade on it. Why a tardigrade? They are prety cool, 93 but I am not exactly
sure. That perhaps is the point that Hackteria strives to make. With the collaborative open-
source paradigm, not only can less-expensive high-performance tools be built and shared with
the world, but at the same time, we can make them customized works of art to increase the
aesthetic appeal, ability for our students to express themselves or just the general excitement
for research in our laboratories. The Tardi-GelBox is laser cut in acrylic and made water tight
with acryl-glue. After assembly, you simply cast your agar-gel, pour the running buffer (e.g.
salt water), add your DNA samples, plug into a DC power supply (15-100 V) and enjoy. Hack-
teria has over 70 other low-cost DIY designs such as microscopes, microfluidics, incubators,
spectrometers, bioprinting and more that are best accessed through their wiki.
FIGURE 6.84 Tardi-GelBox.
6.6 Chemistry: Spectrometers and Other Chemical
Research Tools
OSH can also be used for chemistry and chemical engineering. In addition to the work of
Symes et al. [ 15 ] , which has demonstrated using a 3-D printer as reactionware for chemical
synthesis in a way that makes open-source digital chemistry a reality, the open-source
paradigm can make more conventional (yet less-expensive and customizable) chemical re-
search equipment. In this section, we will look at designs for spectrometers and other research
tools useful to those skilled in the chemical sciences. The results of the chemical equipment
from the designs are discussed similarly to the last section to provide data for conclusions
about future development of other open-source analytical tools discussed in Chapter 7 .
6.6.1 Open-source spectrometers
One of the best examples of the OSH approach being applied to research equipment while
also contributing to STEM outreach to bring more young people into the sciences is being per-