- Historical 1960s photolithography used 35 mm photographic lenses and Kodak film to achieve 200 µm features; modern DIY equivalents can reach ~15 µm by optically reducing CAD-printed paper onto 35 mm film, while WWII-era microfilm and holographic Agfa 10E56 film (>4 000 lines/mm) are proposed as ultra-high-resolution photomasks.

- Open-source maskless lithography experiments couple 405 nm Blu-ray lasers or consumer projectors to surplus Russian LOMO microscope objectives, aiming for ~1 µm features without commercial $4 k DLP kits.

- Participants outlined a “chemical foundry” vision in which microfluidic reactors synthesize DNA, PET tracers, or fine chemicals on demand, citing UCLA emulsion papers and Wiley multi-step synthesis examples, and extended the concept to 3-D origami paper microfluidics for ultra-low-cost disposable processing.

- A CD/DVD pickup head was repurposed to write chrome-on-glass photomasks in minutes for a few dollars, while ray-tracing simulations in BRL-CAD were suggested to pre-validate custom microscope and projection-lithography optics before purchasing expensive objectives.

- Neutral-atom microscopy groups (Portland State) demonstrated 0.33 µm resolution and claim scalable improvement, and tip-enhanced Raman (TERS) setups combine far-field optics with nanoscale tips for super-resolution imaging.

- Practical PCB etching data showed 6 mil (≈150 µm) trace widths on 35 µm copper, and a fully automatic liquid-metal printer (Xi’an Jiaotong Univ.) plus PDMS microfluidic chips made from PCB masters were highlighted as emerging open hardware for rapid prototyping.

- Debate over retrofitting existing microscopes for global health versus building fully custom stages concluded that minimal mechanical modification—adding stepper-driven linear screws to already-oiled focus mechanisms—could democratize precision microscopy in resource-constrained settings.

- Channel members criticized the “student-built synthetic eukaryotic chromosome” media story as exploitative labor, contrasting it with the Soviet science-city model where researchers were salaried rather than paying tuition to conduct research.