A bench-top imaging station that counts bacterial and yeast colonies in seconds and logs results by voice, with all lab data kept on the device. Built on its own Arduino VENTUNO Q. No experience needed to join.
Counting colonies by hand is slow and inconsistent, and cloud tools are a poor fit for unpublished lab data.
Count colonies on a standard petri dish in under 5 seconds, within 5% of a careful human count, and save a notebook entry dictated hands-free. How it uses the VENTUNO Q: a camera and LED ring sit over the dish; YOLOX fine-tuned on the public AGAR petri-dish dataset does the counting; Whisper takes gloved, hands-free notes; Qwen 3 turns counts and notes into a CSV or notebook entry; the real-time MCU drives lighting and a stepper turntable for batches of plates. Safety: BSL-1 organisms only, prepared and sealed by a partner biology lab. No culturing in the makerspace. No experience needed. If this sounds interesting, join anyway: every role pairs newcomers with someone who can show them the ropes, and learning as you go is the point.
Build and integrate an existing multi-material unit using hardware already available in the lab. Print required components, assemble the mechanism, install/configure firmware, integrate it with a printer, calibrate filament handling, and produce successful multi-material prints.
Build and test a system that converts PET bottles into usable 3D-printer filament. Print and assemble the required components, connect electronics, test different bottle preparation and processing methods, and develop a repeatable production workflow.
A self-managing hydroponic rack that watches every plant with a camera and keeps water, nutrients and light in range automatically. Built on its own Arduino VENTUNO Q. No experience needed to join.
