[HN Gopher] Foldscope: The Paper Microscope
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Foldscope: The Paper Microscope
Author : marcodiego
Score : 151 points
Date : 2022-09-16 10:42 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (foldscope.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (foldscope.com)
| shireboy wrote:
| We have a similar albeit plastic microscope for our kids. The
| issue I have with it on newer iPhone is that the phone keeps
| wanting to switch lenses. So you clip it on one of the lenses,
| but iOS will switch between that lens and the others based on
| zoom, light, focus, etc. You can get shots but it's somewhat
| finicky esp for kids. These work better with single lens phones.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| I'm sure one of the Pro camera apps will let you specify the
| lens manually.
| imdsm wrote:
| This looks really amazing.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Regular microscopes are so cheap already.
|
| I paid $80 for my kids and $10 for a cell phone adapter. It
| easily sees 600x, magnification.
| naasking wrote:
| You going to lug that microscope around on a hike with your
| kids?
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| I have one. It's nice but the packaging is really bad. Once you
| unpack, you can't easily pack it back again.
| docdeek wrote:
| This looks great for my son who is interested in science but
| shipping to Western Europe at $45 for a single $10 foldable
| microscope is a little too steep. Hope they can find a local EU
| supplier some time in the future.
| onebitwise wrote:
| Checks out the Blips Micro lenses for smartphone. Shipping in
| Europe should be 5-6 euros :)
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| They have extremely misleading marketing, noting
| magnification of 150x for the Ultra lens, but that's _" with
| digital zoom"_ (doesn't add pixels just scales them up like
| you'd do in Photoshop); the actual magnification is only 33x,
| which is trash, wouldn't call that microscopic at all. The
| paper microscope in the OP is _actually_ 140x, much better.
| Even my toy microscope I got for birthday decades ago as a
| kid does 750x.
| novaRom wrote:
| High magnification is not the best for most interesting
| experiences. The best is to have low magnification stereo
| with large Field Of View. A range btw 10x and 20x is great
| to observe fine biological structures in 3D.
| brewtide wrote:
| Our household recently acquired an optical scope. 10x,
| 40x, 400x with stock eyepiece. With a cellphone adapter,
| which is about a 40x for the objective (vs 10x actual
| eyepiece) we hit about 1600x magnification at our kitchen
| table.
|
| Absolutely surreal to take a toothpick end of yogurt, put
| it on a slide and WATCH the bacteria in the yogurt
| running around.
|
| Or other small beings munching up things as they swim
| along.
|
| It's been a real eye opener for the 7 and 9 year old and
| strongly suggest people investigate things like this,
| it's downright cool.
|
| But yes, the few 'lesser' digital scopes are far better
| for cool pictures of bugs, bees, ants, flies, etc. Once
| you get into the optical / need slides route, you really
| need to be looking for literal microscopic things or the
| depth of field (and lack of available light) make it
| quite a letdown.
|
| We can see fruit fly individual blood cells flowing out
| of a smashed fruit fly into a slide. So. Damn. Neat.
| jrussino wrote:
| My kids are a bit younger than yours (3 and 5), but I'd
| love to do this with them at some point. Which scope did
| you buy? I see plenty of relatively "cheap" (<$100)
| options on Amazon; any reason to avoid those or would
| they be sufficient for this purpose?
| tesseract wrote:
| Somewhere around 50x is the dividing line between "I want
| to see normal stuff really up close" (best done with a
| stereo microscope or camera with macro lens [some
| "digital microscopes" fall in this realm]) and "I want to
| see microscopic things that are invisible to the naked
| eye" (best done with a biological style/compound
| microscope with stage and slides, etc.). They can both be
| interesting! The Foldscope is definitely aimed at the
| latter case.
| bla3 wrote:
| You mean Depth Of Field, not Field Of View, right?
| dekhn wrote:
| No. You can't really adjust your microscope hardware to
| get a larger depth of field, but field of view is
| straightforward. You want FOV because most things you are
| going to look at are relatively thin planes. If you want
| more DoF you should do photo stacking. Even for FOV, I do
| multiple field acquisition and then stitch because even
| my low-mag microscope only covers a 1mm circle.
| novaRom wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_view
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes, I agree with this- for the vast majority of people
| 10X is enough! Being able to easily pan the image over
| multiple fields is nice, as well.
| docdeek wrote:
| That looks really neat - thank you.
| hrnnnnnn wrote:
| Thanks for the tip, I've been wanting to do some micrography
| for a while but hadn't found anything decent-looking. Just
| impulse-bought the blips lab kit!
| causi wrote:
| You can get a cheap wi-fi microscope off Amazon for $20.
| hellohowareu wrote:
| I purchased the "Carson MicroBrite Plus 60x-120x Power LED
| Lighted Pocket Microscope"[1] for $15 on Amazon.
|
| I love it for its portability and durability-- I can pop it in
| my pocket or backpack and check out stuff on nature trails.
|
| ...Checking out its amazon page I also see this related, more
| powerful product for $20: "Carson MicroFlip 100x-250x LED and
| UV Lighted Pocket Microscope with Flip Down Slide Base and
| Smartphone Digiscoping Clip" [2]
|
| And a search for 1000x microscope yields this $60 one "LCD
| Digital Microscope,4.3 Inch 1080P 10 Megapixels,1-1000X
| Magnification Zoom Wireless USB Stereo Microscope Camera,10MP
| Camera Video Recorder with HD Screen" [3]
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LAX52IQ?psc=1
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015MS8O48
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/PalliPartners-Microscope-
| Magnificatio...
| anotheryou wrote:
| there are some resellers
| Schinken_ wrote:
| There are also several DIY 3d printed microscope options in
| case that's easier/cheaper for you.
| kleiba wrote:
| What about second hand microscopes off ebay? I know you can
| even get very fancy ones that would be overkill for a curious
| kid at home. But I'm sure you can tap into the lower end
| market where for the same cost as mentioned by grandparent
| you'll end up with something comparable not made out of
| cardboard.
| theodric wrote:
| I find this lazy, high-cost shipping to the foreign lands
| beyond the map both irritating and baffling. This folds, it
| fits in an envelope or through a mail slot. It shouldn't cost
| more than a tenner to ship it. But because they just got 1(one)
| quote from UPS for hyper-express service, they're missing out
| on 400 million potential clients in Europe. It's so, so dumb.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I still have one unopened that I almost forgot about. I got it
| from their Kickstarter campaign. I've been waiting for my kids to
| get old enough to use it. It might be time.
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| If well used could be the final blow to vaccine skepticism. The
| advent of these cheap tools is a very subtle - barely noticed, if
| at all - change that, as sometimes happen, can have a big impact
| on society. More of these, please.
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| >>If well used could be the final blow to vaccine skepticism.
|
| I mean, it could help in the endeavor, by _showing_ directly
| that there are very small things, and even smaller things
| beyond them
|
| (*)nobody told me I'd saying these things in 2022
| renox wrote:
| Very unlikely.
|
| I remember a documentary on Flat earthers trying to prove
| that Earth is flat of course they detected Earth's curvature
| but they didn't change their mind..
|
| Vaccine skeptics are the same. And it's far harder to see a
| vaccine 'in action' than to measure the Earth's curvature.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Indeed. You can't reason someone out of an opinion they
| didn't reason themselves into, as the saying goes.
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(page generated 2022-09-16 23:01 UTC)