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Team:EPF-Lausanne/Tools/Microfluidics/Tamagotchip
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Since there is only one piece of hardware, but many users could log in at the same time, the web application puts users in a waiting line, with only the first person having access to the controls. The others can only watch the video stream. However, to give every one a chance to play, the user in control is swapped every minute, and the others are presented with a countdown of waiting time. | Since there is only one piece of hardware, but many users could log in at the same time, the web application puts users in a waiting line, with only the first person having access to the controls. The others can only watch the video stream. However, to give every one a chance to play, the user in control is swapped every minute, and the others are presented with a countdown of waiting time. | ||
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| + | [[File:EPFL-Tamagotchip-controls.png|thumb|left|250px|Fellow iGEMers can play with our setup from anywhere, using their web browser.]] | ||
| + | [[File:EPFL-Tamagotchip-waiting-line.png|thumb|left|250px|If another person is playing, the user has to wait in line, but can still watch the video feed.]] | ||
{{:Team:EPF-Lausanne/Templates/Footer}} | {{:Team:EPF-Lausanne/Templates/Footer}} | ||
Revision as of 19:22, 18 September 2011
Online microfluidics game
In our quest to promote the use of microfluidics within the iGEM community, we decided to make iGEMers play with a chip from the comfort of their own labs. To do so, we built a web-controlled microfluidics setup, where users can view the chip live and control the valves from a web browser.
Hardware
The hardware is a relatively standard microfluidics setup, as described on the how-to page. It has with two different pressure outputs, one with five manual twist valves and the other with twelve solenoid three-way valves. The solenoid valves are controlled by an EasyDAQ USB24mx relay card, connected by USB to a Thinkpad T40 running Ubuntu Linux 11.04. We wrote our own Python software to control the EasyDAQ.
The video stream comes from a our toy USB microscope (Celestron Deluxe Handheld Digital Microscope), connected to an Apple Mac Pro. The Mac encodes the video for live streaming through EPFL's Flash Media Server.
Software
When users points their browser to tamagotchip.epfl.ch, they are presented with a video player and a set of controls for the valves. The video player streams live video from the microscope, with a buffering delay of approximately five seconds. When they click one of the controls, the instruction is relayed to the hardware and the valves respond accordingly.
Since there is only one piece of hardware, but many users could log in at the same time, the web application puts users in a waiting line, with only the first person having access to the controls. The others can only watch the video stream. However, to give every one a chance to play, the user in control is swapped every minute, and the others are presented with a countdown of waiting time.
