This article is approximately1739 words, recommended reading time is5 minutes.This article introduces a LEGO enthusiast, Yuksel Temiz, who DIY-ed a high-precision electric microscope using LEGO, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi to photograph microfluidic chips from various angles!LEGO is truly a source of joy for adults, allowing them to use their imagination to build their favorite houses and buildings, and it also aids in the creation of precision instruments, making it a favorite among countless geeks!This time, another LEGO enthusiast has been discovered. As a researcher at IBM Zurich, Yuksel Temiz DIY-ed a high-precision electric microscope using LEGO, Arduino (an open-source electronics prototyping platform), and Raspberry Pi (a credit-card-sized microcomputer) to photograph microfluidic chips from various angles!This is truly a case of balancing work and hobby; impressive! Netizens commented: “Even after watching, I wouldn’t know how to do it, and even if I did, it would probably be a mess.”Yuksel’s choice to DIY the microscope was not a spur-of-the-moment decision.On one hand, IBM Zurich has a tradition of developing microscopes. In 1981, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invented the scanning tunneling microscope here.As a DIY enthusiast, Yuksel naturally wanted to follow the tradition of his research institute and hoped to create a modular electric microscope valued at $300.Moreover, Yuksel indeed needed a custom microscope for his research, as photographing microfluidic chips is incredibly challenging!
One Person Builds, Saves the Whole Team: This Microscope is Better than Purchased Ones
Because chips are generally large, standard microscopes cannot capture the entire image, but Yuksel’s research group needs standard microscopes to identify fine features that ordinary cameras cannot resolve.Yuksel also researched papers from other research groups and found that everyone faced this challenge: there is a need for a more precise instrument capable of photographing chips from multiple angles.With this goal in mind, Yuksel took some of his free time to redesign a multifunctional laboratory instrument that could photograph macro shots from almost any angle.Illustration: James ProvostThe design of the imaging microscope used a large number of technologies and materials, including LEGO for the main structural components and 3D printed gears and frames to drive its moving parts. The stepper motor, which enables precise movement, is driven by a motor driver board and controlled by an Arduino board. The Raspberry Pi Zero and Pi camera module are used for image capture.The initial design included a custom control board and parts printed on a high-resolution printer, but before public release, the microscope was redesigned to be assembled with off-the-shelf boards and parts that can be printed on lower-resolution printers at a lower cost.Yuksel’s first prototype was a Raspberry Pi camera module mounted on a platform that could move in three-dimensional space using a linear stepper motor from an old CD drive. The Raspberry Pi camera is an ideal choice because it allows manual adjustments of key parameters such as ISO settings and exposure time.
Revealing the Production Process
Finding the Best Shooting Angle After Repeated Adjustments
IEEE Spectrum documented Yuksel’s process of repeated adjustments during production.Yuksel carefully removed the plastic casing that secured the lens, exposing the CMOS image sensor, and designed a clever mechanism to move the lens back and forth, allowing for high-magnification macro photography. This device worked well for a time, but it was quite fragile. Yuksel accidentally broke the lens mechanism several times, and due to carelessness, the moving parts exceeded their limits, damaging the image sensor.So he decided to take another approach: completely remove the lens from the Pi camera; then, take the objective lens from a low-cost USB microscope and mount it on another CD linear drive so that the objective lens could move back and forth along the optical axis of the Pi camera; and finally, use LEGO to create a casing to protect the exposed sensor of the camera.However, the result of this attempt was that, apart from the high price of the linear module used in the microscope, there was no outcome. The travel distance of the CD drive was too short and still couldn’t achieve a wide range of magnification.Later, Yuksel switched to a lead screw mechanism used in 3D printers. He didn’t use the commonly used 8mm diameter screws, shafts, and bearings, but instead used 3mm diameter components to ensure the device’s compactness. Additionally, moving the objective lens would cause stray light issues, so he decided to move the camera sensor instead.He built a platform that allowed the object to move and rotate along the x-axis and y-axis. Ultimately, six miniature stepper motors with gearboxes were used to move the platform, tilt the microscope, adjust its distance from the object, and focus the image.Illustration: James ProvostThe angle is perfect!Since chips are usually made of highly reflective or transparent materials, providing uniform lighting to the chips is also crucial.The LEGO microscope can place the sample under uniform illumination provided by an LED backlight module. The sample can move back and forth, left and right, and can also rotate to find the desired angle. The body of the microscope can tilt up and down and adjust its distance and focal length from the sample to provide different levels of magnification [bottom]. By moving the lensless camera module within the LEGO casing, the focal length can be adjusted by changing the distance to the bottom of the casing.Yuksel stated that he often designs his own Arduino control boards to achieve compact devices. This time, he designed a control board measuring 18×18 mm, using an ATtiny84 microcontroller and a DRV8834 stepper motor driver. The image quality with this configuration is surprisingly good, not only capturing beautiful images of the chips but also checking micron-level features, and even serving as a digital goniometer to measure contact angles.This project initially aimed to meet a specific need, but Yuksel clearly realized that it could be a multifunctional photography system that anyone can assemble and use at home or school.
Open Source Assembly Instructions
Hoping that DIY enthusiasts can enjoy the fun of making
Yuksel’s supervisors at IBM supported him in making the assembly instructions public, which is practically charitable. A microscope for scientific research can be made with just LEGO, a 3D printer, and a Raspberry Pi, saving a lot of research funding.However, when he began preparing the instructions, he was troubled by several issues.He built the device using a state-of-the-art 3D printer and a fully equipped mechanical workshop. Moreover, the small stepper motors used are expensive and not available in typical amateur electronics stores. Programming the ATtiny84 with a dedicated ISP programmer is certainly not as easy as programming a commercial Arduino control board with a USB interface.Therefore, Yuksel returned to the drawing board and redesigned everything using readily available components, such as Adafruit’s Arduino control board and stepper motor driver, and the 28BYJ-48 stepper motor, which can be found for just a few dollars anywhere. He also replaced the LED matrix light source with a more easily homemade, lower-cost version.Later, he purchased an LED backlight module from Adafruit for $3 and attached a high-power LED. The intensity is slightly lower than the original LED matrix, but for reflective and transmissive microscopes, the uniformity is still quite good. For the new linear actuator, Yuksel combined LEGO’s “sliding” pieces with the rack and pinion combination designed using FreeCAD’s gear toolbox and printed them with his personal Creality Ender 3 printer. The new design performs as well as the previous one, if not better.The instructions have been written on Github, and interested students can go take a look~Github link:https://github.com/IBM/MicroscoPyThis device may have many areas for improvement, Yuksel hopes this prototype can inspire other makers to try new and better ideas.So, can it replace laboratory microscopes? Perhaps not, but this microscope provides a great solution for schools with limited funding, which is why the assembly instructions are open source, as they hope to make it easy for everyone to access and enjoy.The IBM homepage of the guy:https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-YTERelated reports:https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/build-a-sophisticated-microscope-using-lego-3d-printing-arduinos-and-a-raspberry-pi
Illustration: James Provost
