Coupling fluid flow to hydrogel fluidic devices with reversible "pop-it" connections.

Hydrogels are soft, water-based polymer gels that are increasingly used to fabricate free-standing fluidic devices for tissue and biological engineering applications. For many of these applications, pressurized liquid must be driven through the hydrogel device. To couple pressurized liquid to a hydrogel device, a common approach is to insert tubing into a hole in the gel; however, this usually results in leakage and expulsion of the tubing, and other options for coupling pressurized liquid to hydrogels remain limited.