The Eye of the World - Team Alpha

Making microscope available to everyone

Comment 5

Inspiration

Microscopes are an essential tool in science; From observation of microorganisms, crystal structures, and useage in clinical tests. However, they are precision mechanical equipments which are often very expensive for use in some schools.

What if we could create a simple, yet practical microscope? Afterall, first microscope was developed in 16th century, why not apply the same concept to modern readily available resources?

What it does

It is a microscope made from common household items using the exact same concept by Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek; microscope used to observe first ever microorganisms. It allows the students to learn the optical nature of convex lenses created by water droplet, and also have a working microscope at the end. Students are encouraged to discover the microscopic world, however some of the starting points would be provided.

How we built it

Using a small hole on a sheet as a support, water droplet is suspended in the hole. Due to surface tension water droplet would form a convex shape, which would act as a lens. All we need is a structure that could alter the distance between the sample and the lens. And there you have a microscope working under same concept as the one developed in 16th century.

HOWEVER, we upgraded the microscope by adding a pinhole screen, which allows easier use of the microscope. This resulted in microscope working with similar optics to compound microscope than the Leeuwenhoek's microscope.

Challenges we ran into

While theory sounds simple, it is not easy suspending a water droplet in random hole to form a lens shape. Moreover, initial prototype design can be raggedy, and eye straining to use.

Initial prototype design was hard to use as the small water droplet results in very short focal length. While adding a bigger second lens may solve this problem, resource availability wise, getting a second lens was not ideal. Second small water lens would also result in the same problem of very short focal distance. Thus we are experimenting whether pinhole mechanism could be applied to project the image produced by the water droplet onto a wax paper.

-UPDATE: And it worked!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The final design of this microscope is an original design that differs from any other designs on internet. Yet, the mechanism is simple enough for the high-school students to understand the workings, and make the calculation on focal points and ray tracing which is part of their physics curriculum.

Best of all, microscope works!

What we learned

While the mathematical calculation says it is possible. When people create an instrument based off of it, there are many errors on humans side, that it often doesn't go as calculated. Thus the calculation and design have to incorporate some tolerance for random human errors.

What's next for Alpha

Availability of scientific instrument is essential for learning science. Microscopes aren't the only instrument required for science. There are many other instrument that we believe could make it affordable/available for every student around the world. Maybe, the next step would be to create affordable spectrophotometer, which is often used in analysing various solution contents.

PLEASE CHECK OUT THE VIDEO/PHOTOS and TEACHERS MANUAL for MORE DETAILED INFORMATION!

Built With

  • aluminium-can
  • cardboard
  • tape
  • water
  • wax-paper
+ 4 more
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