During embryonic development, an entire organism is generated from a single cell. Genetics and biochemistry have identified developmental signaling pathways, however, how embryonic patterns emerge in space and time remains more obscure. I will discuss our work using a combination of live‐cell imaging, microfluidics, micropatterning, and mathematical modeling to investigate spatial and temporal aspects of embryonic patterning by the TGF‐β signaling pathway, a key morphogen during all phases of development. Our work reveals novel dynamic properties of the pathway and their implications for embryonic development and establishes human embryonic stem cells as a promising system for studying self‐organized patterning quantitatively.