​For the fifth hack in this series, we’re hosting another cell culture hack that brings together the Bay Area’s AI, science, and hardware communities. Teams will have access to the latest AI tools for building agents, the opportunity to ship on Monomer’s robotic workcell, and open hardware tracks.

​No pre-reqs. All scientists, product designers, software, and hardware engineers welcome. We welcome all skill levels and can support 50 builders.

​You must be able to stay through demo on Sunday to participate in the hack. Everyone joining will be expected to demo something by end of the weekend.

​Track A: Develop an AI agent to optimize media composition (closed loop)

​Build an autonomous workflow that iteratively varies media components, runs cell culture, measures outcomes, and updates the next experiment end-to-end. All on REAL cells.

Robotic workcell actions are made available via MCP: 🌡️ Incubate, 🧪 Create media mixture , 💧 Media change, 🔬 Plateread.

​Track B: Use AI coding tools to develop protocols

​Program hitpicking and imaging methods on the following instruments:

• ​Liquid handler: 8-span Hamilton STARlet running PyRobot.

• ​Cephla Microscope.

• ​More to announce later.

​Track C: Implement Physical AI to automate flask-based cell culture

​Program a robotic arm to manipulate manual instruments and automate large volume cell culture.

Hardware available:

• ​Manipulate manual incubator

• ​Manual microscope

• ​T-Flasks

• ​Serological pipettes and tips

• ​Automated bottle opener.

• ​Robotic arm

​Saturday agenda

• ​​9:30a Check in + breakfast

• ​​10:00a Kickoff

• ​​11:00a Finalize teams

• ​​12:00p Hack + build #1

• ​​6:00p Dinner + Round table talks

• ​​7:00p Hack + build #2

• ​​12:00a Robots go to sleep.

​Sunday agenda

• ​​3p Final submission

• ​330p-430p Walk around showcase

• ​430-530p Demos + Pitching

​🤖 **Register for the final demos**

​​Thank you to our sponsors for helping make it happen!

​Host

• ​Monomer Bio develops scientific AI and autonomous workcells to grow complex tissues for drug discovery disease modeling.

​AI Science partners

• ​Elnora AI is an autonomous AI agent that generates and optimizes biomedical lab protocols for biotech and pharma teams, covering everything from cell culture to CRISPR workflows. Elnora learns from both successful and failed experiments, turning negative data that labs typically discard into compound intelligence that improves over time.

​Hardware partners

• ​Opentrons Robotics, a business unit of Opentrons Labworks, Inc., is the industry leader in flexible, user-friendly automation for life science labs. Our open-source ecosystem offers the scientific community the tools they need to automate experiments, share protocols and reproduce each other's results.

• ​​​Cephla is a new spinout that builds open and scalable automated bespoke microscopes with the goal of accelerating discoveries and solutions. Cephla’s products are already being used in top research institutes, leading pharma and biotech companies and fast growing startups. 

​Community partners

• ​Bay area lab automators is a community of scientists, engineers, and tinkerers working at the intersection of hardware, software, and lab innovation.

• ​​SF Hardware Meetup, community of 9,500+ hardware professionals meeting monthly to building meaningful connections

• ​Worldwide Studios hosts ai + hardware hacks and 1-1 sprints to help people build with the latest tools.

​If you want to help sponsor this event or volunteer send us a note at michael (at) raspuzzi (dot) com