The Sci-Bots story began over a decade ago in 2012 when DropBot, an open-source droplet control system for digital microfluidics was developed in Professor Aaron Wheeler’s research laboratory at the University of Toronto. In a short period of time, hundreds of researchers had built their own DropBots by following instructions on a GitHub page and adopted the technology in innovative ways. Sci-Bots was founded in 2016 in response to this community’s calls for quality-controlled pre-built DropBots and related accessories along with technical support.

Sci-Bots products provide a cost-effective entry point into digital microfluidics for anyone who is interested in miniaturizing and automating their research. Microfluidic technologies are typically designed for a very specific application which limits what the devices can do. Our products are different. The Sci-Bots platform technology is uniquely reconfigurable and exceptionally versatile which means there are endless applications that can be produced by creative researchers across disciplines.

Sci-Bots technologies have been used to implement chemical reactions and make measurements in a wide range of applications -- from medical diagnostics in remote settings to hands-free environmental pollutant monitoring. To date, Sci-Bots technology has been featured in over 250 research papers published in peer-reviewed journals by researchers around the world, emerging as a standard against which other systems are compared.