Integration of lab automation in molecular biology lab courses enhances students’ self-efficacy, retention in the field, and attitudes toward the importance of robotics and programming skills in biology. Automation ensures success, allowing students to focus on experimental design, controls, and data analysis rather than procedural details of molecular cloning. The Opentrons for Education community is an excellent resource for sharing these benefits with more students and teachers, making lab automation more accessible.

Teaching with automation benefits students as they develop a better understanding of the power and limitations of using liquid handling technologies to accelerate research, surveillance, and development. The web-based Protocol Designer and new AI features help more instructors engage students in the development and testing of protocols to test. I believe developing protocols helps all learners think critically about the steps involved in simple and complex molecular biotechnology assays!