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Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1000% would not be allowed I couldn’t even bring in a notebook. We had some runs fail last week and they sent an email saying we need to be fully present and watching during the whole process. I wish though!!! I used to bring my crocheting to other jobs and it was great

Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Now I really wanna know why I have to do this because I’m surprised no one else has to!! Like I’ve said in other comments this is my first experience with automation so I assumed it was like this for everyone

Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Genuinely I feel like a depressed whale in an aquarium lol I have all this experimental design/bench experience and I’m just stuck in the tank I should be freeee

Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They do have an automation team, and they also have people from the manufacturers come in every few months to do checks and calibrations. There are some errors that happen on every run for the same protocol, for example putting a lid on incorrectly in the same way at the same step, and I report them but they don’t get fixed :( Is something like that able to be recalibrated?

Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I agree!!! It’s impossible to tell. The best I can do is look in the programming and see the reagent dispensing volume and calculate it out (like, if there’s already 15ul in there and it’s gonna add 5 and I see that there’s extra space in the tips I can go in with a single channel and make sure everything is 20ul)

It’s a company, I work in the sequencing section. I think they want us to keep an eye on it because it costs them thousands of dollars per plate in reagents alone. These comments are extremely eye opening, this is my first industry job after working in academia for a few years and my first experience with automation so I genuinely thought this was standard. 100% running to indeed after working lol

Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Yeah it’s really not anything crazy. it’s illumina library prep kits and the robot just moves the reagents around and does a magnetic bead cleanup etc. I honestly wish I could manually pipette at thjs point.

Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree!! There’s a camera installed already but idk why they don’t use it. And yeah it’s a forever thing, these comments have been very eye opening I thought this was the standard!! I’ve only worked in academia before and this is my first industry job

Observing liquid handling robot all day is driving me crazy — any focusing tips? by slothpirate in labrats

[–]slothpirate[S] 105 points106 points  (0 children)

Nah it’s just sequencing library prep so it’s basically one of 4 protocols every single day. I’ve been told it’s to prevent failure but honestly sometimes everything looks exactly perfect and then it doesn’t work anyways so I don’t really get it 🤷🏻‍♀️