The proposed solution is a personal lab in a box. The box contains a robotic arm and eye. The arm is capable of interfacing with hand-tools and bench tools. A SBC (Single Board Computer) is used to control the robotic arm, record data from the digital camera, and interface with hand tools and bench tools. The combination of these elements will allow for cheaper experiments, easier skill sets based on software, and automation to free up time.

The box is 400x400x400mm in volume, with easy expansion in the X-direction. The box is a solid construction to keep water and clean air inside the box. The box is insulated to hold in incubation heat and dampen noise.

The robotic arm will be designed to utilize gCode, a widely adopted robotic instruction language. This language is used in additive manufacturing, CNC, and laser cutting. The drivetrain of the robotic arm is based on the Open Source Ecology 3D Printers. The hand tool system is modeled after FarmBots UTM (Universal Tool Mount).

The eye is an 8MP digital camera attached to a 180 tilt servo. The Servo and the Camera are connected to the SBC via an HDMI cord, capable of capturing still images, time-lapse, and video. These three formats can be used in parallel with image processing software.

Cellerator groups laboratory tools into two categories, hand tools and bench tools. Some common hand tools are pipetter, whisker, pH meter, magnetic wand and tweezers. Some common bench tools are scale, incubator, centrifuge, gel electrophoresis chamber, bioreactor, and affinity column. 

Cellerator has a hand to interface with hand tools. The hand contains a magnet coupler, RJ45, and power.  The magnets align to the hand tool and allow for docking.  The RJ45 port connects to 8 pogo pins, 2 pogo pins are for 12v power and ground, the other six pins are for communication to the GPIO pins. Future versions will incorporate water and airline. 

Bench tool contains ¼” diameter feet, RJ11 port, and power.  The bench contains an array of 1”x1”  ¼” holes and the bench tool is connected via pegs on the feet. The RJ11 port contains 4 pins, 2 pins are for 12v power and ground, the other 2 pins are for communication via I2C protocol.  Bench tools who need more than 12V have access to the power switch relay for power up to 120V.  Future versions will incorporate QR code that communicates QR code locations, device name, volume, and port locations.