Making a Foldscope

We received our Foldscope yesterday, and this evening we made it after dinner.  The Foldscope project is a microscope with a paper base.  The concept was that using heavy paper, it is possible to mount a lens and a slide stage and that allows for fairly high magnification, and a fully adjustable slide stage while being durable for field use. While it may not be to the same specifications as a western research university, it is good enough for identifying cells, and especially cellular organisms that carry disease. (See TED talk)  So it is being sent around to field research groups in areas where the environment would quickly deteriorate conventional instruments, and areas where samples need to be visually inspected cheaply.  And also classrooms where you could cheaply give every student a microscope and not be worried about children damaging delicate equipment. Of course, we do not fall under any of these categories, but it is a cheap microscope that does not take mush space. So we are going to try it.

What we get in the box

The foldscope parts are in a bag. Take them out of the bag, and match them to the instructions.

Foldscope parts

Following the instructions, as well as the YouTube demonstration of its assembly, we started putting together the lens mount and stage.

Lens stage and sample stage assembly

Then put the whole thing together

Assembled Foldscope

And happy new owner

The Foldscope kit we got came with a couple of premade samples.  

Cells

dragonfly foot

dragonfly leg