Grid enabled USB Microscope

Posted Jan 29th 2008 10:52PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks, peripherals hacks

[Jock] sent in this photo gallery showing a Lego Mindstorm automated microscope. I dug up the paper that was published about this hack to find out just what the idea was. It's a proof of concept showing off automated data collection - the Mindstorms are used to allow the intel QX3 microscope to take data over a grid area. It's an interesting idea for collecting time series data. The computer interface is a bit overly complex, but the Lego's make this sort of project accessible to the amateur roboticist.

Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. Legos rock!

It's amazing the variety of projects you can build with legos, from microscopes to scanners to printers to tasers.

Tasers being a wip. ;-)

Posted at 11:27AM on Jan 30th 2008 by Skyler Orlando

2. Please don't abuse apostrophes. Thanks.

Posted at 1:18PM on Jan 30th 2008 by Apostrophe Nazi

3. please don't use the comment system. thanks.

Posted at 4:13PM on Jan 30th 2008 by commentsystem nazi

4. This seems like a great idea all by itself -- but I seem to remember, several weeks ago, a hack someone did which allowed scanning of 8mm and Super8 film for conversion to DVD.

Blending these two projects together, would it be possible to have an automated, frame-by-frame, ultra-high-resolution movie film scanner? Of course, if so, it would yield scans which would be much higher resolution than the original 8mm or Super8 film, but I like the idea of scanning those images so tightly that even the individual film grains are scanned.....

Posted at 7:42PM on Jan 30th 2008 by Jordan Mogerman

5. do'n't be a d'ick apo'stro'phe na'zi

p.s. ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Posted at 11:06PM on Jan 30th 2008 by Ap'ost'rop'he Na'zi'''''''''''''''s pim'''''''''''''''p

6. i think a good hackit would be coming up with the most original hack involving legos or duplos, with a limit restriction to what most people would reasonably have (to keep someone from being a dumbass like Apostrophe Nazi by submitting "build a house out of mindstorms" or something of a similar scale)

i actually think i'm going to suggest that to will and see what he thinks

Posted at 11:15PM on Jan 30th 2008 by monster

7. No really. Every time you abuse an apostrophe, Jesus kills a kitten.

Posted at 4:57AM on Jan 31st 2008 by Elomis

8. elomis: I think you mean "every time you put an apostrophe where it isnt meant to go, jesus kill's a kitten"(sic)

Keeping with the off-topic flavour, would someone tell the guys who made this to please, for the love of humanity and all that's sacred, get a captcha to avoid endless pages of "hmm that's quite interesting and by the way get cheap cialis here".

I like the hack though.

Posted at 9:53AM on Jan 31st 2008 by PKM

9. Great post...

Buy my car with a trunk full of Viagra and Cialis!

(lol)

Posted at 4:30PM on Feb 1st 2008 by M4CGYV3R

10. Just to let you know we made a mark 2

http://gallery.combe.chem.soton.ac.uk/lego_micro_2

Posted at 6:51AM on Feb 14th 2008 by Andrew Milsted

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