Winner, Name that Ware June 2022

The Ware for June 2022 is a Cue COVID-19 test cartridge. Congrats to Nathan for identifying it first. Email me for your prize! Also thanks for the comment describing how it works, Frankie — that’s pretty fascinating. I’m copying your comment here so others who might have missed it can benefit from your insights:

The round object in the incubation chamber is a piezoelectric element designed to sonicate the sample solution. This ensures the contents of the lyophilized pellet (which contains the enzymes used for DNA amplification and detection) are well mixed with the sample solution. The PCB has heating elements which melt wax valves when it’s time to send the contents downstream. Lot of clever ideas in the Cue device.

I guess the blue stuff must be the wax valves. I was wondering what that was for. Also — wow, the black element is a mini sonicator. That is downright cool! Now I want to extract it from the plastic and hook it to a signal generator, heh.

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