Tag: microscopy

3d Printable Microscopes

A few interesting, low-cost but potentially lab-grade, microscopes that would be great Makerspace projects for students.

OpenFlexure: Out of the University of Bath, this has a Raspberry Pi at the core that can control the stage, focus, and sensor (using the RPi camera module). Since it’s modular the cost varies with the image quality you’re aiming for, but it looks like you can achieve even high resolution results relatively cheaply. They have great detail on their website, including their own version of Raspbian to install on the Pi, so this looks like an good starter project.

UC2: I really like the look of this building block, LEGO-style, system. It seems extremely flexible and there are some interesting projects that go beyond your standard microscope. There are a lot of designs you can go with, including an Arduino or using a Raspberry Pi and camera, but they claim to get good results just with smartphones. This is a big, sprawling project, which suggests a slightly steeper learning curve.

Hat tip to Maggie Eisenberger for introducing me to these.

Video: From a Single Cell to an Alpine Newt

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Watch a single cell become a complete organism in six pulsing minutes of timelapse. A film by Jan van IJken (www.janvanijken.com).

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An exceptional timelapse of the developing of an Alpine newt by Jan van IJken

Rotifers

Two students working on their campus ecology project were using the compound microscope to look at microbes associated with the leaf matter from the creek, and they found these two rotifers.

Rotifers under the microscope.
Rotifers under the microscope.

The one on the left was trying to suck in the two green protists, which generated a current that sent the protists into a circular loop.

Grasshopper

Grasshopper under the microscope. (10x magnification).
Grasshopper under the microscope. (10x magnification).

I caught a grasshopper in the bushes this morning. They’re a bit of a pest at Heifer so I didn’t feel too badly about bringing it in to inspect under the microscope.

The students found it to be curious as well. So much so, that one decided — of her own volition — to diagram it as well; including one of the small fecal pellets our grasshopper had graciously deposited into its petri dish.

Exploratory diagram of a grasshopper (by E.H.).
Exploratory diagram of a grasshopper (by E.H.).

When we get back, I’ll point out Cmassingale’s nice grasshopper dissection page. It’s a pretty decent reference for gross anatomy.

Students studying a grasshopper under the microscope.
Studying a grasshopper under the microscope.

A Projecting Microscope

A fly's wing seen using the projecting microscope.
Using the projecting microscope.

A parent (thanks Dr. E) found this old projecting microscope at a microscope store in town. The optics are arranged upside-down relative to normal: the light is at the top and the objective lenses are upside-down and below the slide. The light coming through the objective is reflected onto the screen using a simple mirror.

It needs a dark room to see some of the more detailed, lightly stained. However, higher-contrast slides show up reasonable well in our classroom, despite its large, unblocked windows.

The Eyes of the Spider

Close up of spider.
Close up of spider.

I’m taking a small group of kids hiking/cross-country running for Physical Education this quarter. With the heat wave of last week, and having to clear the trail up the hillslope, today was the first day we actually got all the way to the top of the ridge. On our way back down, one of my students had stopped to look at a frond of tiny, pretty flowers when she spotted this beautiful, yellow spider with its brilliantly, iridescent catch. We brought them back to the lab to look at it under the microscope. It’ll also be interesting to observe what the spider does with the fly.

The eyes of the spider.
The eyes of the spider.

A spider with its rather large catch.
A spider with its rather large catch.

Constructing a Wooden Slide Tray

Handmade, 25 slot slide tray.
Handmade, 25 slot slide tray.

To have somewhere to store the slides I’ve been making, I needed a slide storage box. They’re pretty cheap, but they’re also pretty simple to put together with stuff I could, mostly, find around the house: some scrap wood (from an small wooden CD holder tray that I’m not using any more); a small sheet of clear acrylic (from the hardware store); a short piece of sticky-backed, rubber foam for insulating windows (to keep the slides pressed into place so they don’t move in the box); and some craft glue (ModPodge). For tools, all I used were a few clamps and the saw on a pocket tool.

Using the pocket saw was the biggest pain because I had to cut little slots into the wooden frame to hold the slides. Twenty five slides meant 50 slots, and although the wood was soft, the width of the blade was almost exactly the width of a slide, so if the slot was not perfectly vertical the slides would not fit properly and I’d have to carefully saw it a little bigger. The clamps were a big help with the sawing.

The base of the slide tray was put together with scrap wood and the saw on the pocket tool.
The base of the slide tray was put together with scrap wood and the saw on the pocket tool.