MICROFLUIDIC
TRAINER

DESIGN, FABRICATION AND VALIDATION
OF A TOOL FOR MANUAL SKILLS

TRAIN YOUR ACCURACY

Microfluidic principles have been applied for more than 30 years to solve biological and micro-electromechanical problems.

Despite the numerous advantages, microfluidic devices are difficult to manage as they pose several technical challenges.

To face these challenges, we decided to develop the microfluidic trainer (MT).

This new portable tool assesses the operator handling skills and may be used for maintaining or improving the ability to inject fluid in the inlet of microfluidic devices for in vitro cell culture applications.

After several tests, we optimized the MT tester cell to reproduce the real technical challenges of a microfluidic device. In addition to an exercise path, we included an overfilling indicator and a correct infilling indicator at the inlet (control path).

To create multiple capillary paths and the cover grid we etched a 3 mm high methacrylate plate with a 60W CO2 laser plotter.