In this talk, I will introduce the audience to the experimental aspects of the AMO physics in the ultracold regime, covering laser cooled atoms, ions and molecules. The examples will come primarily from the work done at the University of Warsaw and Warsaw University of Technology. In AMO physics, experiments that test new theoretical ideas or reveal properties of matter typically require a construction of complex experimental setups. As a result, before any meaningful experimental data can be obtained, one often spends years on hardware and software development and optimization, and fighting with noise sources. I will discuss how all of that influences the progress of research in this subfield of physics - not only as a cautionary tale but also as an opportunity to find interesting, and possibly overlooked, physical phenomena at places where a typical experimentalist sees another parameter to optimize before moving to a greater goal. The expected outcome of the talk is to make the audience aware that very often something that from a theoretical point of view is almost inconsequential, in the actual laboratory might require months of optimization of the experimental setup. In the last part of the talk I will present several research themes that are currently either pursued by my team, or can be considered a work in progress.