- Jonathan Cline demonstrated a $25 DIY sonoporation protocol that successfully transforms E. coli using a 35 W, 42 kHz ultrasonic jewelry cleaner, eliminating heat-shock, electroporation, CaCl₂, buffers, or beads; the open protocol and UV-verified pGLO results were posted to the diybio Google Group along with his newly authored Wikipedia sonoporation entry.

- Participants outlined a sub-$50 open-source electroporator design based on a Cockcroft–Walton multiplier (~2 kV), tens-of-nF high-voltage capacitors, and IGBT/thyristor triggering, with discussion of optimal 1–100 µs exponential-decay pulses for 30–60 kΩ E. coli cuvettes and the RC time-constant formula (τ = R·C) to predict pulse width.

- Cathal Garvey’s PEG + MgSO₄ chemical transformation protocol was highlighted as another low-cost, low-step alternative to heat-shock, while “Sticky Lithography” (The Scientist, 2013) was shared as a tape-and-polymer microfluidics fabrication technique.

- A collaborative plan emerged to build an open-source microplate DNA synthesizer by reverse-engineering Tecan Genesis liquid-handling robots, using Polar Systems rotary stages and back-EMF motor control, with jcline volunteering for hardware design.

- Community frustration was voiced over Wikipedia’s “biohacking” article being dominated by self-promotional “grinder” content; kanzure provided a curated citation list (http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/diybio/citations.txt) and advocated merging the DIYbio, biopunk, and biohacking pages.