Anish Senapati

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 This video is a picture of an algae (small green dot near the bottom left corner) slowly drifting through the water. There are also two air bubbles in the water, one on the top of the video and another on the bottom left. The algae is slowly pushing through the water moving further down while also moving around the water bubble that is near it. This video was taken on August 11th at 8:42 PM. It was taken by putting a sample of water onto a slide and then placing a slide cover on top of the water, taping down the slide cover on both sides. The slide was placed in the foldscope such that a small green splotch on the slide was centered on the lens of the foldscope. The foldscope was then closed up and a light was placed on the front lens with a magnet. A magnet also placed a lens to the camera of my Iphone which was then used to record this video.


 One question that I have about my video is why does the algae recorded have such a sporadic movement while moving in the downward direction? Does it have something to do with the air bubble and attempting to move around the bubble? In order to answer this question, we could attempt to find the same type of algae, but in a different environment (no air bubble around it). We would then see how it moves through the slide without an external presence in its environment and compare it to the movement in this video.

Algae drifting around an air bubble

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 This is pollen collected a yellow flower on Carisbad State Beach on the outskirts of San Diego as seen through my Foldscope. The pollen was collected at 5:30 PM on May 10, 2019. The pollen was collected by placing a piece of tape on the anthers of the daisy until the tape had yellow bits on the sticky side of the tape. Then, the tape was taped onto the slide and placed in the Foldscope. My iPhone was placed in the foldscope eyepiece and a picture was taken on the iPhone. By searching for yellow flowers in San Diego and seeing which one matched the one that I found, I noted that the plant species is Camisonia cherianthifolia. #caltechbi1

Anish Senapati

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Algae drifting around an air bubble

Pollen from yellow flower from a beach in San Diego

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Foldscope Lens Magnification