• The channel is collaboratively designing an open-source DNA oligonucleotide synthesizer with a hard BOM target of ≤ US $50 k, deliberately postponing final oligo length (≥ 16-mer minimum, 50-mer practical, 250-mer upper bound) to avoid over-constraining the first prototype.

• Two competing architectures are being debated: (1) a conventional multi-channel valve-and-pipettor “macro” system that mimics commercial machines versus (2) a microfluidic approach using emulsion beads or PDMS chambers with in-channel PAGE purification that claims ~2 min per synthesis cycle.

• Fabrication discussions center on using focused-ion-beam (FIB) micro-milling to prototype nano-/micro-fluidic channels and integrated electrodes (~US $18 k for 50 h), countered by arguments that photolithography plus soft-lithography PDMS casting is an order of magnitude cheaper and already proven.

• Reagent purity and cost drive the HPLC debate: a commercial HPLC quoted at ~US $20 k is defended for high-purity 10–55 bp fragments, while others argue simple desalting or PAGE suffices for early prototyping; the verification plan is pragmatic Sanger sequencing (~US $5–10 per read) instead of building an in-house open sequencer.

• Prior art being mined includes the 2004 POSAM inkjet oligo-synthesizer (Genome Biology 5:R58), the 2010 Church-lab bead-array platform (Nat. Biotech. 28:1291), and Tito Jankowski’s teardown of a US $500 k Illumina/454 sequencer (http://titojankowski.com/the-500000-dna-sequencer-tear-down/).

• Emotiv’s new Kickstarter campaign was dissected; participants doubt its ability to track more than four “thoughts” and question marketing claims, with kanzure offering firmware for verification.

• The Glowing Plant Project’s GMO-reward ban by Kickstarter prompted calls for alternative crowdfunding platforms tailored to genetic-engineering projects.

• Ultra-low-cost EEG sensors (OpenEEG, NeuroSky) were proposed by klafka for injecting “crowd-noise” data into reactive art installations, while kanzure floated mining expired 1980s DNA-synthesizer patents for forgotten designs revivable with modern hardware.

• A Lab-on-Chip paper was shared—“Cell-free protein synthesis from a single copy of DNA in a glass microchamber” (Lab Chip, 2012)—as inspiration for miniaturized synthesis workflows.

• Blu-ray optical pickups (300 nm track spacing) were suggested as a raster-scanning stereolithography writer for polymer layers, and Norsam (http://www.norsam.com/) was cited as a local precision-milling shop capable of sub-micron features for rapid prototyping.