

Build your own PCR machine - m_for_monkey
http://openpcr.org/

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AceJohnny2
This system does precise temperature control (heating and cooling) of the
reaction vessel, which is filled with your sample DNA and the right enzymes.

There are other systems which benefit from precise temperature control: make
chocolates (getting the right consistency depends on following the right temp
curve), sous-vide cooking, SMD soldering ovens, there emerges a need for
generalized PID (proportional-integral-derivative) temp controllers. But hey,
one's just emerged! [http://brettbeauregard.com/blog/2012/01/introducing-the-
ospi...](http://brettbeauregard.com/blog/2012/01/introducing-the-ospid/)

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WestCoastJustin
I wasn't aware what a PCR machine does and the website assumes you already
know! PCR is a technique that allows scientists to create a vast quantity of a
specific sequence of DNA (via
[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091226132510AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091226132510AA7WDvN)).

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m_for_monkey
They have a nice interactive Flash demo which explains what PCR is and how to
use the machine: <http://openpcr.org/use-it/>.

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polyfractal
Funny anecdote: the original PCR experiments were done with water baths at
various temperatures. They manually moved the DNA samples from the boiling
water (denaturation), to hot water (55-ish degrees, annealing) to hotter water
(elongation, 70ish) and then back to the boiling water for another round of
amplification.

