The Student News Site of Colorado State University

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

The Student News Site of Colorado State University

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

The Student News Site of Colorado State University

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Print Edition
Letter to the editor submissions
Have a strong opinion about something happening on campus or in Fort Collins? Want to respond to an article written on The Collegian? Write a Letter to the Editor by following the guidelines here.
Follow Us on Twitter
Crypto Exchange Listing: Types of Exchanges and Compliance Requirements
March 25, 2024

The crypto industry continues to evolve, fueled by the increasing institutional adoption of crypto. Today, numerous companies are entering the...

CSU students develop Lego microscope with potential to revolutionize microscopy education

With Legos and an iPhone, Colorado State University undergraduates have the potential to revolutionize the education of particles that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Students collaborated to build a microscope out of Legos, glass and an iPhone that can view nanoparticles, which are particles that are a thousand times smaller than a human hair. Because of this microscope, CSU is one of the fifteen regional finalists in the Americas for the Edmund Optics Educational Award, with the possibility of winning $10,000 in optical technology from Edmund Optics.

Ad

Edmund Optics, a global organization that supports scientific fields of study through optical technology like expensive microscopes, has presented an award to support outstanding optics programs in STEM related fields.

Assistant professor Justin Sambur applied for the award because of his undergraduate students’ work on creating an inexpensive microscope out of minimal materials, making this technology available to more students.

“Most importantly, the activity exposes young students to optics concepts and optical components, and ultimately provides them with a rewarding experience of building a fully-functional optical microscope for nanoparticle imaging,” wrote Sambur in the application for the award. “Our optics activity will reach a broad audience (high school and undergraduate students) because it is very inexpensive compared to research-grade optical and electron microscopes.”

Normally, microscopes that can view these nanoparticles costs around $10,000. The Lego microscope can be built for around $200.

Amy Simpson, left, and Travis Varra, right
Amy Simpson, the undergraduate researcher who handled the image processing, and Travis Varra, who built the Lego microscope, with their respective parts of the project. (Julia Trowbridge | Collegian)

The idea for the microscope was presented by Sambur in Fall 2016 to Travis Varra, a junior studying chemistry. 

“I was told to come up with an inverted version of a research-grade microscope,” Varra said. “Then, I used my Legos from when I was a kid (to build it). I didn’t have any directions and came up with the design on my own.”

The microscope has a band-pass filter, which is a piece of glass that filters in a specific wavelength of light. With this filter, the smartphone captures the nanoparticles that have a red color while the light put into the microscope is green, which allows the nanoparticles to be seen instead of washed out by all of the green light.

“The goal is to make (a research grade microscope) that is easily accessible to those who don’t have the resources,” said Amy Simpson, a senior studying chemistry and a researcher in Sambur’s lab.

While Varra built the microscope, Simpson was instrumental in processing the images captured by the iPhone, according to Sambur. These images needed to be processed and analyzed, and eventually compared to the $20,000 microscope in CSU’s facilities.

Ad

Lego microscope with light shining in contraption
The Lego microscope, built by undergraduate researcher Travis Varra. This microscope has the capability to allow high school and undergraduate students to view particles a thousand times smaller than a human hair. The microscope cost around $200 to make. (Julia Trowbridge | Collegian)

“This microscope is great for optics and education,” Sambur said. “For students, it’s hands on. They can build a microscope and image a single nanoparticle, which is not easily doable without expensive imaging capabilities.”

The goal of this project is to publish the design in the Journal for Chemical Education, an American Chemical Society journal meant for sharing educational tools in chemistry. If the Sambur lab receives a prize from the Edmund Optics Educational Award, the prize will be spent on furthering the project and towards imaging capabilities for CSU’s research labs.

With this lego microscope, the Sambur lab also hopes to create an educational lab activity that allows high school and undergraduate students to image nanoparticles and become interested in the field of microscopy and more effectively show young scientists objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Collegian news reporter Julia Trowbridge can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @chapin_jules.

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

When commenting on The Collegian’s website, please be respectful of others and their viewpoints. The Collegian reviews all comments and reserves the right to reject comments from the website. Comments including any of the following will not be accepted. 1. No language attacking a protected group, including slurs or other profane language directed at a person’s race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social class, age, physical or mental disability, ethnicity or nationality. 2. No factually inaccurate information, including misleading statements or incorrect data. 3. No abusive language or harassment of Collegian writers, editors or other commenters. 4. No threatening language that includes but is not limited to language inciting violence against an individual or group of people. 5. No links.
All The Rocky Mountain Collegian Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *