Open Labware: 3-D printing your own lab equipment.

The introduction of affordable, consumer-oriented 3-D printers is a milestone in the current "maker movement," which has been heralded as the next industrial revolution. Combined with free and open sharing of detailed design blueprints and accessible development tools, rapid prototypes of complex products can now be assembled in one's own garage--a game-changer reminiscent of the early days of personal computing. At the same time, 3-D printing has also allowed the scientific and engineering community to build the "little things" that help a lab get up and running much faster and easier than ever before.

A small, light-weight, low-power, multichannel wireless neural recording microsystem.

A small (<1cm(3)), light-weight (<1g including batteries), low power (10mW, lasts 25 hrs), long range (22 ft.), 3-channel wireless neural recording system is designed, fabricated and characterized through in-vitro and in-vivo experiments. The transmitter comprises of an ASIC fabricated in 2-Poly, 2-Metal 1.5 microm AMIS process which can transmit data out wirelessly using on-chip VCO or low power commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) transmitters. The microsystem is employed in collecting neural signals from two different animal models: axons in cockroach leg and forelimb area of the motor cortex of a mature Long Evans rat.