This is fun to see. I work in this space currently.

Seems to be a potential solution for small academic/independent labs w/o a budget for what you have labeled a "mainframe" system.

However, you can purchase an old simple tecan/hamilton/beckman for under $2K that has more flexibility then this machine (e.g. ebay "beckman 2000" or "Tecan Genesis 200").

The open source software certainly provides good flexibility for the "hacker" types. But a script step on those other platforms provides the same abilities.

Just giving my thoughts. Curious to hear more.