More often than not, the layouts of your output plates are not important. In simple workflows, the quickest and easiest route is to let Synthace define the layouts of your output plates for you. This means that all you need to do is specify a naming convention for your output plates, then select the type of plate that you want them to be. In this tutorial, we see how to do this with the Aliquot element.
Get started
Read the introduction to this series of tutorials. For more information, click here.
Create a workflow in the builder. To learn how, click here.
Rename the workflow Core elements tutorial 2.1. To learn how, click here.
Select the device on which you want to run your workflow. To learn how, click here.
Select a default plate type. To learn how, click here.
Define your liquids
First, you must define the liquids that you want to aliquot.
Open the Elements panel, search for Define Liquids And Plates, then click the element to add it to the canvas.
On the canvas, click the element to open a list of inputs to the element (i.e., a list of things that you can control).
From the Define From input, select Parameters to expose some inputs that you can use to define your liquids.
In the Names input, click Add New Item, then specify the name
Liquid A.This is the minimum requirement to define a liquid. To learn how to define a liquid in more depth, see Core elements tutorial 1.0.
Aliquot the liquids to a defined plate set
Open the Elements panel, search for Aliquot, then click the element to add it to the canvas.
We now need to pass the liquids that we defined in the Define Liquids And Plates element to the Aliquot element, so that the Aliquot element knows which liquids to aliquot.
To do so, click and drag the Liquids output from the Define Liquids And Plates element to the Liquids To Aliquot input of the Aliquot element.
Click the Aliquot element, then specify the Aliquot Volume as
50 uland the number of Replicates as1.
Describe the plate set to which you want Synthace to allocate your aliquots. To do so, in Plate Set Names, specify a name for the plate set, then in Plate Types, select a plate type for the plates in the set.
Note: We have selected a 96 well plate, but we also specified that we want to make 384 aliquots. To address this discrepancy, Synthace will create a whole set of plates for you. Each plate in the set will have the Plate Set Name that you specified, followed by a number. This way, Synthace ensures that there are enough wells to accommodate all of the aliquots.
Simulate the workflow
Check that the device that you selected can follow the instructions that you prepared. To learn how, click here.
Preview the execution
After you simulate the workflow, click View Simulation to open the simulation details.
Open the Preview tab, then click through the steps to check that the instructions that Synthace has generated are correct.
Notice that Synthace has created four plates to satisfy our request for 384 aliquots on a 96 well plate. Each one of the plates is part of the Aliquot Plate set, as this was the Plate Set Name that we specified. However, each plate has a unique name that contains an incrementing number.
Tip: If you want to control the order of the transfers to your output plates, see Core elements tutorial 10.2.