We’ve seen a lot of practical machines built using Lego. Why not? The bricks are cheap and plentiful, so if they can get the job done, who cares if they look like a child’s toy? Apparently, not [Yuksel Temiz]. He’s an engineer for IBM whose job involves taking pictures of microscopic fluidic circuits. When he wasn’t satisfied with the high-power $10,000 microscopes he had, he built his own. Using Lego. How are the pictures? Good enough to appear in many scientific journals.
Clearly, the microscope doesn’t just contain Lego, but it still came in at under $300. According to an interview from Futurism, the target devices are reflective which makes photographing them straight-on difficult. After experimenting with cameras on tripods, [Yuksel] decided he could build his own specialized device. You can see a video of the devices in question and some of the photographs below.
According to the same interview, it took several prototypes to get it right. The first prototype didn’t use Lego but was 3D printed. However, in a quest to make the microscope more modular and configurable, [Yuksel] raided the toy box.
The open source microscope is fully motorized, modular, and uses a Raspberry Pi with an 8-megapixel camera to capture images. An Arduino controls stepper motors and the lighting. The second video, below, shows the construction, and you can find documentation on IBM’s GitHub repository.
Not that we haven’t seen custom microscope builds before. If you prefer 3D printing, this might get you started.
Wait, did you just say Lego bricks are cheap? Lmao
I wonder how much less it would cost replacing LEGO with Mega Bloks?
Resolution would suffer.
compared to getting the design run off at a machine shop to the tolerances already possible with glued LEGO? yes. yes it is cheap.
think id have used an i2c adc and ran the joystick directly to the pi to save an arduino.
AGAIN where is the 1 dollar paper printed microscope?
Get a blank piece of paper and glue a magnifying lens to it.
There you go. Probably 1$.
You HaD’s and your Inquirer headlines. How does a microscope do research? Why dehumanize all of people’s accomplishments?
Because they think we don’t remember
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2014/09/03/345521442/a-1-microscope-folds-up-from-paper-and-a-lens-of-glue
https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/03/11/173734/the-1-origami-microscope/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/foldscope/foldscope-the-origami-paper-microscope/
OK, now that is a hack, $300 dollar lego microscope replaces $10,000 microscope, neat.