RATIONALE

We developed a standard approach that mirrors how the bench chemist works and how the bulk of the open literature is reported, with the round-bottomed flask as the primary reactor. We assembled a relatively small array of equipment to accomplish a wide variety of different syntheses, and our abstraction of chemical synthesis encompasses the four key stages of synthetic protocols: reaction, workup, isolation, and purification. Further, taking note of the incomplete way chemical procedures are reported, we hypothesized that a standardized format for reporting a chemical synthesis procedure, coupled with an abstraction and formalism linking the synthesis to physical operations of an automated robotic platform, would yield a universal approach to a chemical programming language. We call this architecture and abstraction the Chemputer.

Fascinating concept, but as with 3d printing, it's much better on paper. And safer, too. Forget about minor mistakes having major consequences, or 4chan being 4chan:

bench chemistry isn't to be taken lightly. On the one hand, you're tackling reproducibility problems, on the other, some jackass could cause harm or worse.