Public Lab has a simple mission – they want to address environmental problems that affect people. Their website says that that group is trying to address the problem of people needing access to tools and methodology to understand their communities. They work to better understand air, water and land environments using low cost solutions and build a worldwide database of environmental information. A need for widespread microscopic data came from Wisconsin, where many citizens are worried about respirable silica coming from the frac sand mining boom. Public Lab is currently running a crowdfunding campaign for The Community Microscope Kit, a low-cost microscope kit for any experience level of citizen scientist.
The microscope is said to take fifteen minutes to assemble and requires a smartphone or laptop for its screen. For me the real novelty comes from the focus mechanism – three bolts with wingnuts make up the frame for the microscope and focusing is done by tightening or loosening the bolts. Construction of the rest of the microscope is just as clever and simple – coroplast sheet, binder clips, clothespins, a keychain light and tape are used to house the webcam and flipped lens. The camera for the base version of scope is webcam-grade but both lens and camera upgrades are offered as part of the campaign. Using a microscopic ruler the group says that using the base webcam scope that objects as small as five microns wide are visible.
As a project, this microscope looks like it meets the design requirements of being low cost and effectively visualizing microscopic particles. Public Lab encourages its users to make as many enhancements and revisions as desired, so that the tool can improve while staying true to the idea of gathering information using simple and low-cost tools. The already successful Kickstarter campaign ends on June 27, and the base model microscopes have a current shipping schedule of August 2018.