I have seen people talking about the laser with and getting it to a comfortable opening and closing method. I would be more than happy to put a pneumatic operated cylinders in there and have a nice soft open and close switch that I could install for pretty cheap. Or we could go by a 12 volt actuator / 110 volt actuator hooked up to some simple linkage that has end stop switches on it. I think it would make for a cool project for the hive and show off our awesomeness to people lol. Just wanted to throw that out there because I we cannot make it to the meeting tonight.
That solution was already offered up and it was quickly decided that it was probably a bad idea. 
If the air cuts out for whatever reason then the lid would come down, possibly at a pretty high rate! If it was a littler safer it would have been a really cool way to do it though.
Jon
Electric actuators?