Rosie the Robot, Laboratory Automation and the Second World War, 1941 to 1945

Abstract

In our own day, managers often cite the gains in productivity as

The First 110 Years of Laboratory Automation: Technologies, Applications, and the Creative Scientist

“…On the other arm, a take-off tube drained the reagent into the reaction vessel at a rate equal to that of the distillation. 38 An example of the type of automation to conserve manpower was the semi-automated still developed by Bassett Ferguson Jr. of the Ugite Sales Corporation of Chester, Pennsylvania, for petroleum analysis. The still was operated at a constant rate and employed automatic temperature recording.…”

“…The device was limited to a total applied EMF of 10 volts and could not correct for a positive drift in the cathode potential. 38 James Lingane of Harvard University later introduced a version of the device that eliminated these problems. An ammeter read the electrolyzing current and controlled a second current in opposition to the cathode-reference electrode EMF.…”

“…Defense spending reached $75 000 000 per day, and overall industrial production was up 66% from its 1935-1939 average. 38 In 1942, the United States produced 47 000 aircraft, and the total would rise to 100 000 aircraft in 1944. By 1944, the civilian labor force rose to 64 010 000 persons, and 10 000 000 were serving in the armed forces.…”

“…In 1941, chemists working at Shell developed a potentiometric titration procedure, 41 and by 1943, the procedure was automated. 38 The entire device was designed for use by an unskilled operator who would load the sample, add a conductive media, press the start button, and read the result directly from the chart recorder. In mercaptan titrations, the end point was determined by an electronic potential that was unique for a particular type of gasoline.…”

Design of Microplate-Compatible Illumination Panels for a Semiautomated Benchtop Pipetting System

“…1,2 The adoption of these standards coincided with laboratory automation becoming more commonplace and has resulted in microplates becoming one of the most common types of labware used in modern laboratories. [3][4][5] While modern automation supports many of the operations for which microplates can be utilized, there remain many use cases where scientists must still use handheld pipetting devices to manipulate microplates in a benchtop nonrobotic setting. Additionally, many efforts are underway to automate or semiautomate traditionally low-throughput laboratory tasks by leveraging open-source technologies to increase process efficiencies, reduce operating costs, and limit opportunities for error.…”