tentative agenda:
feel free to post more below or bring it up tomorrow at the start of the meeting.
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Hi all! I can only join the meeting for a few minutes tomorrow but we just started V3 of our PLR course at Duke this semester and has put a ton of work into improving our teaching resources both through our BME590 PLR workshop and also a PLR cookbook that the students reference throughout the class. Our goal is to ultimately disseminate as a resource with autograding for “accreditation” or something of that nature as we continue to beta test and improve, but we’d love your feedback from anyone who is regularly teaching others. We have a few new team members starting in the lab soon, so we’ll continue to refine with their feedback. We have also been gathering some learning metrics over the last 2 years that we’ve been beta-testing the class in person, which I’d be happy to share. I can only jump on the call for a few minutes in the beginning, but maybe if there’s time Stefan could share some of what he’s built and get feedback?
One of the things that would be the most helpful with suggestions is where we might be able to add direct links to either PLR forum threads or documentation to make it easy for anyone who is writing methods for the first time and has questions. Perhaps we’ll start a separate forum thread to get feedback and suggestions as well from the community. Thanks y’all!
BME590 PLR Bootcamp (Install + 5 workshops) BME 590 · PyLabRobot Workshops
PLR Cookbook: The PyLabRobot Cookbook
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meeting notes:
- V1 Architecture V1b1 branch merged
- device specific classes, using shared code behind the device-specific interface
- introduced device managers: people responsible for maintaining specific device drivers. hopefully vendors in the future.
- Chory Lab cookbook highlight: The PyLabRobot Cookbook
@CamilloMoschner: slides
- is refactoring the Hamilton Star driver to handle advanced tracking and low-level commands.
- developed a 3D visualization engine using three.js with glb model support. it looks sick
- proposed standardizing device coordinate frames to the front-left bottom (fixing origin. PLR already fixed the axes / unit vectors.)
@claudio:
- recent contributions including high-res centrifuges, the Agilent Echo, and the Agilent BenchCel.
- Test new drivers: Claudio to test the incoming PF 3400 and refrigerated Hettich SBS centrifuge.
@j0nch: slides
- Event Bus and Manual Operator: Introduced a resource-aware event bus for semantic tracking and a manual operator feature to handle human or custom non-PLR actions as structured protocol steps.
@kelsorjsf
The discussion regarding MHS (Model Hardware Standard):
- Context: the standard was announced recently, and participants identified it as an “exciting hardware scenario” similar to MCP, aimed at making it easier to connect various instruments to agents, particularly for high-mix, low-volume execution.
- Rick emphasized that MHS is not competing with PyLabRobot. Instead, MHS serves as a connector between agents and instruments, while PyLabRobot acts as the implementation framework that allows code to actually run on those instruments. MHS actually uses PyLabRobot already for various integrations. It might compete with SILA.
- Camos noted that the MHS announcement video featured a “suspiciously high” number of PyLabRobot-supported devices, which Rick attributed to the fact that PyLabRobot provides accessible APIs that allow for development and hacking on these systems.
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