Computing/Robotics

Robotics

Various biology tasks can be handled by liquid-handling or tray-handling robots. The following robotic systems are used in some labs:

• Tecan: uses a graphical user interface called Gemini to create scripts which are called Gemini Scripts (*.gem files). The Gemini application runs on Microsoft Windows, however it also provides a method for external applications to send text-string robot commands to control all aspects of the robot. The Gemini application can also call external programs while running a script.
  • Jonathan Cline has created some scripts in Perl which command the Tecan robot directly.
  • There is a Yahoo! Groups mailing list called "TecanProgramming" which has various Tecan discussion, and some Visual Basic example software for controlling the robot directly.

• Biomek: Uses a graphical user interface to create scripts. The script language is called Bioscript.

(Please add others to this list)