🎙️ Guest: Madeline Wolf | Founder, The Automated Lab
🎧 Hosts: Mike Ouren, Sura Hadi, and Elizabeth Rodziewicz
📺 Series: Automation in the Wild
Title: Blueprints, Bots & Breaking In: Building The Automated Lab from the Ground Up
"You can’t automate what you don’t understand." – Madeline Wolf
In this episode, we sit down with Madeline Wolf, a seasoned automation engineer, product manager, and founder of The Automated Lab. From developing modular RAC systems at Ginkgo to building a community-first education hub for automation engineers, Madeline shares real-world lessons on scaling platforms, managing human factors, and breaking the mold in biotech.
🧠 What You’ll Learn:
- Why the RAC system changed how modular automation is done
- What makes human-centered design essential in lab systems
- How The Automated Lab is filling the education gap in biotech automation
- Lessons from automation failure, sticker wisdom & user empathy
- How product management grows from engineering roots
☕ Whether you're building robots, mentoring teams, or exploring your next big automation challenge—this episode will shift how you think.
🎧 Subscribe for new episodes weekly → / @helicalbrew
📩 Want to be a guest? Email us: helicalbrew@gmail.com
📍 TikTok, Shorts & more: @helicalbrew
⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS – NAVIGATE THE EPISODE
00:00 – Intro & Icebreaker
02:10 – DNA, Bugs & First Automation Aha!
05:00 – Early Career & Systems That Should’ve Exploded
07:15 – Zymergen, Ginkgo & Factory-Scale Automation
13:30 – What Modular Really Means (and Doesn’t)
20:00 – Human Factors in Automated Workflows
26:15 – Going Meta: From Engineer to Product Manager
31:00 – User Error or Engineering Failure?
37:00 – Why Stickers Save Robots
42:15 – Building The Automated Lab
47:15 – Education as the Trojan Horse for Change
54:00 – The Future of Modular Hardware & Open Source
1:03:15 – Dream Challenges & Industry Shifts
1:14:00 – Picks of the Week: Scary Squids & Switch Games
1:20:00 – Wrap-Up & Where to Find Madeline
🔗 Connect with Madeline Wolf
Website: https://theautomatedlab.com
LinkedIn: / madelinewolf
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