MinION Lego

I heard it. Oxford Nanopore will not be released for months. It has promised big and a lot. Many people are anxiously waiting them to release “real” data. Is it really 96% accuracy? No sample prep, no kidding?

Instead of just thinking about it, I chose to do something fun. I released my Lego MinION model at ABRF 2012, a meeting mostly for Omics facility crowd, who are often my hard working colleagues to generate more than enough data for me to analyze.

So far, I can only find three pictures of MinION on the Web. So the model is built based on those snapshots. The model can be totally wrong. But several people recognized it at the meeting without me telling them what it is.

The Lego model should be similar in size as the published pictures. The USB drive in my model is a working one. It can hold one human genome. In addition, my Lego sequencer also do not have length limit of sequencing. The average accuracy is ~25% and sample prep is optional. Another important feature is that the back of the Lego sequencer has a camera. So it can take a picture before it sequences a thing of interest.

Dog models of 14 1X2 Lego plates

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about using only 1 X 2 Lego plates to build models. 1 by 2 plate is the smallest unit that has a connection in Lego system. They should be able to build a as complex (or simple) structure as you can imagine. One simple model I built that is enough to impress my children is a dog model. Since 1x2 plates are easily available at home or to buy from Lego stores, I do encourage you to try it.

Lego 1X2 Plate Build

To build a complex structure does not necessarily need complex Lego pieces. I has been thinking about to use just 1x2 plates to build models since they are the smallest Lego units that provide connections. Here is a few tries on animal models.

Make Faire Interview

Here is a video of an interview at Maker Faire 2011 on my DNA models. I was very pleased with the final cuts.

This is my first LEGO model on the third generation sequencing technology. It is a model of SMRTCell of Pacific Biosciences. It was built as a prompt for my wife's party.

The SMRTcell was inserted in the middle of the model. I was amazed by the fact that the dimensions fit LEGO's very well. It was an interesting discovery.

The most difficult part of the model is how to make a circle. Normally LEGO can only support square or rectangle shapes.

The first picture is an empty SMRTcell on a stand.



The second picture is an empty SMRTcell from a different angle.



The third picture is SMRTcell began its sequencing. The color in the middle are fluorescent lights for each ZMW. Green is A. Red is T. Blue is C. Yellow is G. The black pieces in the middle of the SMRTcell are for the robot to recognize and locate the cell for movie taking. (Just a guess).