Open Hardware seminars

What’s the point of having scientific and technological innovations when only a few can benefit from them? How can we make science more inclusive? Those questions are always in the back of my mind when we perform research in our laboratory, and we have a strong focus on the scientific accessibility of our developed methods from microfabrication to sensor development.

This seminar, hosted by the LIBRE hub project, will provide an in-depth introduction to the Global Open Science Hardware (GOSH) movement. Since its inception, GOSH has been instrumental in advancing open-source hardware within scientific research, fostering a diverse and active community. The seminar will cover the history of GOSH, its current initiatives, and future opportunities, with a particular focus on the contributions and activities of the Latin American branch. This session aims to inform researchers, educators, and policy-makers about the significance and impact of GOSH in promoting accessibility and collaboration in science instrumentation.

Controlling biological processes using light has increased the accuracy and speed with which researchers can manipulate many biological processes. Optical control allows for an unprecedented ability to dissect function and holds the potential for enabling novel genetic therapies. However, optogenetic experiments require adequate light sources with spatial, temporal, or intensity control, often a bottleneck for researchers. Here we detail how to build a low-cost and versatile LED illumination system that is easily customizable for different available optogenetic tools. This system is configurable for manual or computer control with adjustable LED intensity. We provide an illustrated step-by-step guide for building the circuit, making it computer-controlled, and constructing the LEDs. To facilitate the assembly of this device, we also discuss some basic soldering techniques and explain the circuitry used to control the LEDs. Using our open-source user interface, users can automate precise timing and pulsing of light on a personal computer (PC) or an inexpensive tablet. This automation makes the system useful for experiments that use LEDs to control genes, signaling pathways, and other cellular activities that span large time scales. For this protocol, no prior expertise in electronics is required to build all the parts needed or to use the illumination system to perform optogenetic experiments.

OpenFlexure is a 3D printed flexure translation stage, developed by a group at the Bath University. The stage is capable of sub-micron-scale motion, with very small drift over time. Which makes it quite good, among other things, for time-lapse protocols that need to be done over days/weeks time, and under space restricted areas, such as fume hoods.

Open science hardware (OSH) as a concept usually refers to artifacts, but also to a practice, a discipline and a collective of people pushing for open access to the design of science tools. Since 2016, the Global Open Science Hardware (GOSH) movement gathers actors from academia, education, the private sector and civic organisations to advocate for OSH to be ubiquitous by 2025. In Latin America, GOSH advocates have fundraised and gathered around the development of annual "residencies" for building hardware for science and education. The community is currently defining its regional strategy and identifying other regional actors working on science and technology democratization. In this presentation I will give an overview of the open hardware movement for science, with a focus on the activities and strategy of the Latin American chapter and concrete ways to engage.