引言

Introduction

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來自德國的科學(xué)家，教師和學(xué)童設(shè)計并使用樂高積木和iPhone手機(jī)鏡頭制作了功能齊全的模塊化顯微鏡。該儀器易于構(gòu)建，且可以解析微米大小的物體，如單個活細(xì)胞。

A fully functional modular microscope has been built using LEGO bricks and low-cost smartphone lenses. Designed by researchers, teachers and schoolchildren in Germany, the instrument is easy to build, yet it can resolve micrometre-sized objects such as individual living cells.

來自哥廷根大學(xué)&明斯特大學(xué)的生物物理學(xué)家Timo betz和他10歲的兒子在某個周末玩樂高積木時產(chǎn)生了制作樂高顯微鏡的想法: 使用這些老少皆宜的模塊化塑料積木。

The idea for a LEGO microscope came to biophysicist?Timo betz?(from the Universities of G?ttingen and Münster) and his 10?year-old son one weekend while playing with LEGO – modular plastic building blocks that are beloved by children (and many adults) worldwide.

"我的第一反應(yīng)是，這太難了，因為需要精確的機(jī)芯和一些非樂高部件，"betz回憶道。"但是我的兒子想出了一系列關(guān)于如何克服這些困難的好主意。他甚至想出了一種方法，使用樂高光源來照亮樣品。"

“My first reaction was that this is too hard, because of the precise movements and all the parts that are non-LEGO,” recalls betz. “But my son came up with a series of great ideas on how to overcome the difficulties that I explained to him; he even figured out a way to use a LEGO light source to illuminate the samples.”

轉(zhuǎn)載自physicsworld:

"High-resolution microscope is made from LEGO bricks"

少年作者?

Junior author

到周末結(jié)束時，這對父子二人組已經(jīng)制造了一個原型。然而，即使在貝茨的同事巴特·沃斯（Bart Vos）的幫助下，也花了一年多的時間對設(shè)計進(jìn)行微調(diào)，編寫施工計劃并驗證儀器的實(shí)用性?，F(xiàn)在，這三人已經(jīng)在The Biophysicist上發(fā)表一篇論文中詳細(xì)描述了樂高顯微鏡(當(dāng)然，貝茨的兒子是共同作者)。

DOI:?https://doi.org/10.35459/tbp.2021.000191

By the end of the weekend, the father-son duo had built a prototype. However, even with assistance from betz’s colleague Bart Vos, it took over a year to fine-tune the design, write construction plans and validate the instrument’s usefulness. Now, the trio has described the microscope in a paper published in?The Biophysicist?(with betz’s son co-author, naturally).

最終的設(shè)計類似于一個簡單的樂高積木塔，但它隱藏了一些精巧的功能（見圖）。例如，為了提供精確的焦點(diǎn)調(diào)整，團(tuán)隊在設(shè)計物鏡支架時必須"突破磚砌系統(tǒng)的極限"。這包含一個帶有齒輪蝸桿螺釘?shù)凝X輪齒條，每次完全旋轉(zhuǎn)可實(shí)現(xiàn)約3 mm的變焦。

The final design resembles a simple LEGO tower, but it hides some clever features (see figure). For example, to provide precise focus adjustment, the team had to “push the limits of the brick system” when designing the objective holder. This incorporates a gear rack with a gear worm screw that achieves approximately 3 mm of travel for every full rotation.

唯一的非樂高部件是顯微鏡的透鏡。為了獲得高放大倍率，透鏡可以從低成本的iPhone5二手機(jī)中拆解而得，并將透鏡連接到帶有透明膠帶和玻片的樂高積木上。通過使用這些iPhone鏡頭，顯微鏡可以達(dá)到254x的放大倍率。

The only non-LEGO parts are the microscope’s lenses. For high magnification, these can be cannibalized from a low-cost replacement iPhone 5 camera module and then attached to a LEGO brick with transparent tape and a glass coverslip. Using these plastic iPhone lenses, the microscope can achieve 254× magnification.

分步搭建指南

Step-by-step building instructions?

然而，對于樂高顯微鏡的創(chuàng)作者來說，最重要的是這些顯微鏡能夠在世界各地的教室和家庭中建造和使用，以學(xué)習(xí)光學(xué)知識。為了進(jìn)一步實(shí)現(xiàn)這一目標(biāo)，他們創(chuàng)建了構(gòu)建說明和分步教程，以指導(dǎo)人們完成搭建并了解顯微鏡的相關(guān)光學(xué)特性。此外，他們還從當(dāng)?shù)氐膶W(xué)校招募了八名9-13歲的孩子，他們的任務(wù)是進(jìn)行顯微鏡制作嘗試，并展示這種動手活動如何幫助學(xué)習(xí)。

Most important to the creators, however, is that the microscope can be built and used in classrooms and homes around the world to learn about optics. To further this aim, they created build instructions and a step-by-step tutorial to guide people through construction while learning about the relevant optical characteristics of a microscope. Moreover, they enlisted eight 9–13-year-olds from a local Münster school who were tasked with building the microscope in an attempt to show how such a hands-on activity assists learning.

鑒于COVID-19的限制，研究人員無法看到孩子們在課堂上參與顯微鏡活動。因此，他們創(chuàng)建了一個工具包，孩子們可以帶回家，旁邊是一份調(diào)查問卷，以便在玩工具包之前和之后填寫。調(diào)查顯示，孩子們對顯微鏡的認(rèn)知在參與制作樂高顯微鏡后幾乎翻了一倍。

Most important to the creators, however, is that the microscope can be built and used in classrooms and homes around the world to learn about optics. To further this aim, they created build instructions and a step-by-step tutorial to guide people through construction while learning about the relevant optical characteristics of a microscope. Moreover, they enlisted eight 9–13-year-olds from a local Münster school who were tasked with building the microscope in an attempt to show how such a hands-on activity assists learning.

樂在其中的實(shí)踐

Fun and informative activities

這些孩子還用他們新建的顯微鏡進(jìn)行了幾次實(shí)驗?？茖W(xué)家們認(rèn)為這些是有趣和信息豐富的活動。實(shí)驗包括: (a) 實(shí)時觀察水從鹽溶液薄膜中蒸發(fā)時的結(jié)晶; (b)記錄暴露于滲透性休克的紅洋蔥表皮細(xì)胞的色素沉著變化; (c, d)觀察微小的游泳生物的運(yùn)動，如鹵蟲蝦和水蚤。

These children also conducted several experiments with their newly built microscope. These were suggested by the researchers as interesting, fun and informative activities. The experiments included watching crystallization in real-time as water evaporates from a thin film of salt solution; recording pigmentation changes to red onion epidermal cells exposed to an osmotic shock; and observing the movement of tiny swimming organism such as?Artemia?shrimp and water fleas.

這并不是第一次用樂高制造顯微鏡。2013年，加州大學(xué)舊金山分校的一群研究生設(shè)計了一種名為LegoScope的類似顯微鏡。然而，LegoScope需要一個定制的物鏡和3D打印的零件。

This is not the first time a microscope has been made of LEGO. In 2013, a group of postgraduate students at the University of California, San Francisco designed a similar microscope called?LegoScope. However, this instrument required a custom objective and 3D-printed parts.

betz認(rèn)為，對于父母來說，新的樂高顯微鏡用現(xiàn)成且可重復(fù)使用的零件降低了組裝障礙，非常適合進(jìn)行簡單的顯微鏡原理展示。

betz argues that the new LEGO microscope’s readily available and reusable parts “l(fā)ower the barrier, especially for parents”, making it perfect for simply demonstrating the principles of microscopy.

"開發(fā)這個實(shí)際上很有趣，"betz說。"我只是希望孩子和他們的父母有機(jī)會意識到，即使使用簡單的工具，也可以做一些了不起的事情。

“It was actually a lot of fun to develop this,” he says. “I just hope that children and their parents have a chance to realize here that even with simple tools, one can do amazing things.”

支持性內(nèi)容

Supportive?content

相關(guān)The Biophysicist文章:

"Designing a High-Resolution, LEGO based Microscope for an Educational Setting"?

安東尼·范·列文虎克在17世紀(jì)發(fā)明了顯微鏡，這是微觀世界研究時代的開始。雖然我們現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)知道他觀察到的"小動物"是什么，但微觀和納米世界是生物物理研究的一個取之不盡、用之不竭的話題，而光學(xué)顯微鏡是首選的工具。

The invention of microscopy in the 17th century by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was the start of an era of research in the micro-world. Although we know by now what the “l(fā)ittle animals” are that he observed, the micro- and nano-world is an inexhaustible topic for biophysical research, for which the light microscope is the instrument of choice.

我們設(shè)計了許多實(shí)驗，可以使用這款樂高顯微鏡和易于接近的材料進(jìn)行，同時探索各種生物物理主題。最后，我們證明了這款樂高顯微鏡可以在教育環(huán)境中使用，讓一組9至13歲的學(xué)生制作顯微鏡，并通過問卷展示他們在理解顯微鏡方面的進(jìn)展。為了簡化樂高顯微鏡的使用，我們?yōu)閷W(xué)校環(huán)境或幫助父母和孩子以自主方式發(fā)現(xiàn)生物物理學(xué)和顯微鏡設(shè)計了一個循序漸進(jìn)的工作流程。所有材料，包括零件清單、建筑平面圖、工作流程和項目建議，都可以在補(bǔ)充材料和GitHub上找到。

We design a number of experiments that can be carried out with this LEGO microscope and easily accessible materials, while exploring various biophysical themes. Finally, we demonstrate that this LEGO microscope can be used in an educational setting by letting a group of 9- to 13-y-old students build the microscope and demonstrate their progress in understanding of microscopy with a questionnaire. To ease the usage of the LEGO microscope, we designed a step-by-step workflow for a school setting or for helping parents and children discover biophysics and microscopy in an autonomous way. All materials, including parts lists, building plans, workflows and project suggestions are found in the Supplemental Material and on GitHub.

樂高顯微鏡的完整搭建指南請見此Github鏈接

https://github.com/tobetz/LegoMicroscope

水木視界丨iss. 4

每周分享結(jié)構(gòu)生物學(xué)前沿進(jìn)展