Foldscopes at Robert Frost Middle School STEM night

Apr 07, 2016 • 3:51 AM UTC

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140x Magnification

Microorganisms

laksiyer

Human observer of life. https://sukshmadarshin.wordpress.com

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On the 25th of February, the Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville MD hosted a STEM night. As two of the micronauts are students in the same school, we decided to put up a Foldscope table for the occasion. We had a sample preparation section where a visitor could prepare his/her own sample and a viewing section where they could view or photograph their foldscope images. We also had several permanent prepared slides that a visitor could use for foldscoping. It was great to see the micronauts in action.
The visitors were mostly children and their parents. We estimate ~50 visitors. Many of the visitors were impressed and wanted Foldscopes for themselves.

Micronauts in action

Onion epidermis A few observations for the future.
1. In future presentations, it would be great to have a projection on a screen of the foldscope images. Digital image projections seem to only work for iPhones. Any idea how we could do it with an android phone?
2. The poster was really useful and many people took pictures to get contact information. It might help to have contact information cards.
3. It might help to have different types of foldscopes: Bright field, Dark field, projection, and reflection and possibly a couple of magnifications, each showing a different sample.
A short video of the night follows.

The great news is that we are going to have a display at the Rockville science day on April 24th. For more details see the this link . See you there.
-DC Micronauts