The Paper Microscope

Microscopes are crucial for diagnosing infectious disease. But in some ways they’re the worst possible device—heavy, expensive, and hard to maintain. Paper microscopes, also known as foldscopes, contain all the crucial parts within one foldable sheet of paper. They can be optimized for different diseases and cost less than a dollar.

 

The Foldscope Instrument has a magnification of 140x and 2 micron resolution. With those capabilities, the many wonders of the microscopic world are at your fingertips!

 

Visit Foldscope website for more info.

What Can You See ?

 

With a magnification of 140x, you can see tiny things like bacteria, blood cells, and single-celled organisms like copepods, tardigrades, tetrahymena, diatoms, rotifers, nematodes and more. As well as larger things like a insects, fabrics, tissues! Foldscope can also allow the observation of non-biological samples, such as particulates detrimental to air quality, or the microscopic crystalline differences between real and fake medications.

Assemble Your Foldscope

Learn how to assemble your Foldscope! This tutorial will teach you how to put together your microscope and view your first sample.

Foldscope Viewing Methods

Learn how to view samples with Foldscope's three viewing modes! This tutorial will teach you how to view Foldscope samples in three ways: directly with your eye, using your phone, and projecting.

Prepare Your Slides for Folscope

Learn how to mount samples on paper slides! This tutorial will teach you how to mount flat samples like a leaf and powdery samples like flower pollen using clear stickers, and bulky samples like a spider exoskeleton using a ring sticker.

How To Find Water Bears

Let's do a fun science experiment! We're going to learn how to find Water Bears. Join me to learn about these awesome microscopic creatures!

Copyright © 2022 Science Week - Pittcon