A YouTube maker built a home version of a medical lab machine
A YouTube maker called It's Triggy looked at the price of a lab machine used for medical tests, then built a home version. It moves liquid into 96 small wells at once. Hackaday reported the build in December 2025, and 3DPrint.com followed in May 2026.
What happened
The maker's video is called “This Medical Machine costs $18,000. I Took It Personally.” Hackaday and 3DPrint.com both give $18,000 as the price of a professional machine of this kind. The maker wanted to run experiments, and the price stood in the way.
A pipette is a thin tube that picks up an exact amount of liquid and lets it go. A multi-channel machine does this for many samples at the same time. That lets someone test many small changes to one experiment at once.
Triggy built one for a few hundred dollars in parts. It works on a plate of 96 small wells, set out in a grid of eight by twelve.
The build uses 3D-printed parts and a frame of metal rails. Four stepper motors move a plate up and down, and a set of gears helps raise and lower another part of the machine. A stepper motor turns in small, exact steps, so the machine can stop where it should.
Triggy wrote the firmware, the code that runs the machine, then tested it by dispensing and mixing liquids. The design files and the code are shared openly online.
It does not replace professional lab equipment. It was built for home experiments, and Hackaday notes it would need extensive testing before anyone relied on it for critical work.
To watch the maker's video, search YouTube for its title or for It's Triggy.
Why it matters for your child
This one machine holds many robotics skills at once: designing parts, building a frame, driving motors and writing code. A child can learn each of those one at a time.
The build points to a habit worth having: break a big machine into small pieces, then build and test each one. Children can start the same way, with one motor or one circuit. That is the move from using technology to making it.
Machines like this help labs run medical tests. Someone has to design them, build them and write the code that runs them. Your child does not need to choose that path now, but every skill in it starts small.
What Robocoders build
In Robotics, Robocoders work with the same kinds of parts as Triggy's machine: motors, electronics, designed parts and code.
On the Gyro Elevator course, Robocoders build a lift controlled over radio. A second circuit with a sensor that detects tilt sends the signal. This is where they move from block coding to writing C++ on the robot's own controller.
On the Robotic Arm course, they design their own parts in CAD, then build the arm and tune how it moves. They steer it with a joystick and give it a camera that recognises shapes. This is robotic automation, the same idea behind a lab machine.
Younger Robocoders, aged 6 to 9, start with Robotics 6 to 9 and a new project each month. One project is a classic surgeon's game, wired with 3D-printed organs and a buzzer.
Robotics is eighty percent hands-on. Real building, not more screen time. Robocoders build in a Studio Lab, with a Mentor beside them.
Where to start
Start with a Free Tech Assessment at your nearest centre. Your child builds and codes a first project with a Mentor. It is free, and there is no obligation to enrol.
Book a Free Tech Assessment Find your nearest Robocode centre and book your child's Free Tech Assessment. Book a Free Tech Assessment
Is this a real medical device?
No. It is a home build for experiments, and it does not replace professional lab equipment.
What age can my child start robotics?
At 6, with Robotics 6 to 9 and a new project each month. From 10, the robotics path runs through five courses, from a first circuit to a drone.
What does my child build on the older courses?
Each of the five courses for ages 10 to 17 ends with a working robot. The builds run from a robot that reacts to light to a lift, a robotic arm and a drone.