In this repository, we share a number of hardware designs that we developed for the published article “An inexpensive, high-precision, modular spherical treadmill setup optimized for Drosophila experiments”. While writing this paper, we also started documenting previously developed components that we would like to share with other labs and researchers. And while we hope to improve these individual designs over time, we will use the repository as a supplementary file collection for other publications. Similarly, we also started a (non-exhaustive) link collection to interesting repositories, projects, and other publications.

Consequently we offer two different ways to navigate the components: On the one hand and in the Collection menu we describe how several components can be combined. Most notably we have a description of the components of the “Inexpensive Treadmill”, a living document supplementing the published article. Our step-by-step guide provides a different view on the same setup: here we explain in great detail how to assemble such a system.

The other way of navigating the website is by browsing the different categories of components. This would be the parts we used in walking setups and for body fixating flies (tethering), but we also started collecting parts for flight setups and for physiology setups. In addition, the “Miscellaneous menu” contains files that might be useful for visualization of the setups, but are not meant to be produced.

The repository contains different file types. We list file extensions together with the (mostly FLOSS) software to modify the designs. In the production menu we list the 3D printers we used.

Finally, get in contact if you have any questions, want to learn more about any part, or have any recommendation for our link collection.

If you are building behavioral setups for insects, you might also be interested in the Modular LED displays.