A microscope magnifies small objects. It provides us the means to observer extremely small things that are not visibile to the naked eye.
History
The name “microscope” was coined by Giovanni Faber a German botanist. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is credited with the discovery of microorganisms. He used a simple microscope. Robert Hooke is credited with discovering plant cells. Infact he coined the term “cells”. He used a compound microscope.
Leeuwenhoek’s simple microscope https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/leeuwen/leeuwmicrosm.jpg
“my work, which I’ve done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.”
Antony van Leeuwenhoek. Letter of June 12, 1716
How do we convert a webcam into a microscope?
By inverting the lens.
Then building a stage.
Mounting the camera.
We make major assumptions here, because the maths in calculating numerous parameters in a compound lens is substantially involved. Ideally we should be doing the maths first and the making subsequently, in conformation to the maths. But for now, the proof of pudding will be in the making.
Our process will be
Opening the webcam
Modifying the internal lens mount to accept an inverted lens
We were given a webcam and lenses. We made a stand using cardboard to hold the modified webcam and the slide. The stand was supported by a three layer base with a vertical board which had a hole in its centre. To this board, we attached another piece of cardboard in order to add rigidity and support. To hold the microscope, we used two equally cut pieces of cardboard with two holes.
As for the microscope, we inverted the optics to convert thr webcam into a digital microscope. The inverted optics turned out not to be focussing very well. It took us rather long to make the optics focus better and complete the microscope.
Today we had a challenge of making a microscope out of a web cam. Though at first we all were really confused on how to approach it, we eventually found out a way. We started the progress by first making a stand for the microscope. First we made a three layered base on which we attached a vertical board with a hole in the centre. On this board we attached another piece of cardboard cut in a shape to support the microscope. To hold the microscope we decided upon using two equally cut pieces of cardboard with two holes to fix the microscope.
After the stand was completely build we had to start with converting the webcam into a microscope-our main challenge. To build the microscope we inverted the optics but a problem we faced was that the inverted optics were not focusing very well. This took us a lot of time to finally make the optics focus to complete the microscope . But now this microscope is now completely functional.
We collected old and decaying leaves from the bushes near the CP Block. We left this sample for a day with a drop of milk. This a video from when we observed it with the help of a microscope.
@raveenaprateek
There is no way in which we can bend the pc sheet without heat as this is the only way to do so without breaking it. As an alternative, you can cut two seperate pieces to act as sides and glue them to the main structure.
Today, we continued building our digital microscope. We added support to our stand using Polycarbonate sheet. We tried to heat it in order to bend its corners but we were unsuccessful due to poor heating. As an alternative, we decided to cut two different strips of breadth 1 cm which we finally stuck on both the sides of the sheet. This acted as the stage for our apparatus.
Phototropism (growing towards light) occurs because the tips of growing plant shoots contain a pigment that’s sensitive to light, especially blue light. When light shines on the shoot, it gets absorbed by the pigment (called phototropin), and that triggers the release of the plant hormone auxin, which makes cells grow.
This is a rather controversial topic with many people claiming to have invented this highly useful product. It is most probably Zacharias Jansen.