When Experiments Go Wrong
Interactive diagnostic wizards that walk you through what happened and what to do next. Built from real problems at a real bench.
Why I Built This
Experiments fail. That is normal. What is not normal is having no systematic way to work out why. Most troubleshooting advice online is a flat list of things to check, written by someone who has never actually had to debug a failed cloning at 6pm on a Friday with a conference deadline approaching. It does not help you narrow down the problem. It does not connect the diagnosis to what you should do next. And it certainly does not work offline in a lab with no signal.
The troubleshooting wizards in BenchCalc are diagnostic flowcharts. You pick a problem, answer questions about what you observed, and the wizard walks you through a decision tree to a specific diagnosis with actionable solutions. Real gel images show you what common failures actually look like, so you can compare against your own results. Solutions cross-link to the relevant protocols and calculators so you can go straight from diagnosis to fixing it.
How It Works
Each wizard is structured as a step-by-step decision tree. You start with what went wrong, and the questions get progressively more specific based on your answers. There are no dead ends. Every path leads to a diagnosis and a set of solutions ranked by likelihood. If the problem might span multiple areas, cross-wizard navigation lets you jump to a related wizard without losing your place.
Your progress is saved automatically. You can stop mid-diagnosis, close the app, and come back to it later. You can also share your diagnosis if you need to discuss it with someone else in the lab.
Features
Real gel images throughout, so you can visually match what you are seeing on your bench to known failure patterns. Cross-links to protocols and calculators mean you do not have to hunt for the right tool after a diagnosis. Cross-wizard navigation connects related problems across different wizards, because a cloning failure might actually be a digest problem or a gel artefact.
Save your diagnosis, resume later, or share it. Request new troubleshooting topics through the feedback link if your problem is not covered yet.
More Wizards
Protein Expression and Purification, Cryo-EM (Sample Preparation, Screening, and Analysis), In Vitro Transcription, and DNA/RNA Extraction. If there is a wizard you want that is not on this list, get in touch at [email protected] or through GitHub Discussions.