[Health] $30 microscope

Caryl Bigenho cbigenho at hotmail.com
Mon Feb 7 13:26:58 EST 2011 

Hi All...


In one of my previous lives, as a science teacher, I taught high school and middle school students the wonders of the world of microscopic things.  While a $1 microscope sounds wonderful, it doesn't sound very practical.  Attaching the lenses to the camera lens on the XO, as it seems to be described, would require holding the sample up to the lens, or holding the XO over the sample.  This would be pretty tricky with a petri dish full of protozoa!  The problem of focusing is also a concern.


I would love to try a microscope with a usb connection.  In fact, I may buy one to add to by XO gadget collection.  But I have a couple of questions.


Is the resolution of Mary Lou's $1 microscope dependent on the lens or the Record Activity or something else?  Would a usb microscope with better (focusable) lenses give higher resolution?


Is there already an Activity for Sugar that supports the use of a usb microscope?


Caryl
> From: sridhar at laptop.org.au
> Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 00:53:21 +1100
> To: kgordon420 at gmail.com
> CC: devel at lists.laptop.org; health at lists.laptop.org; olpc-au at lists.laptop.org
> Subject: Re: [Health] $30 microscope
> 
> On a related note, does anyone know if the $1 microscope is being
> successfully used in the field?
> 
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Microscope
> 
> 
> 
> On 21 January 2011 10:20, Kevin Gordon <kgordon420 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Folks:
> >
> > We've been able to get the Veho USB 400x 1.3Mp/2.0Mp interpolated to work
> > on  the XO 1 and XO 1.5 under 10.1.3 with 'Cheese'.  However, with this high
> > resolution webcam, you just need to make sure it attaches itself to the USB
> > 2.0 bus.  If for some reason it comes up and attaches to the 1.1 bus, one
> > gets get what looks like a 1970's color TV test pattern when starting the
> > camera software..
> >
> > I can't speak to the specifics of the DIgiMicro; we bought a bunch of
> > different microscope samples from various HK based ebay vendors before
> > standardizing on the Veho.  It is fully uvc compliant and also works on
> > Ubuntu, Windows and the Mac.  On Ubuntu, we use guvcview to control it.  Due
> > to the fact we needed to support multi-continent co-curricula, we needed one
> > that ran everywhere on everything.  It  can cost between $40 and $75 from
> > ebay depending on the day of the week, it seems.  Be careful, the one one
> > wants is the '004' product not the '001' or '004'.
> >
> > On the XO, Mikus Grinbergs has since done some magic for us to get guvcview
> > to load on the XO, since guvcview only has an Fc12, 686 RPM.  It gets more
> > complicated since some of the dependencies for guvcview need the FC12/686
> > rpm versions which one has to go out and find manually,  while other
> > dependencies need the FC11/586 standard repo versions.  For us, we are still
> > in the process of bullet-proofing this so young users can mod their 10.1.3
> > box to install guvcview.  guvcview has way more user-definable parameters
> > than does Cheese.
> >
> > So, for simplicity, one can just install Cheese for now.  It works from
> > Sugar if called from the terminal prompt.  It wont run properly as root,
> > just stay as default OLPC user., dont know why, dont really care. Personally
> > I run as little as possible as root.    A bunch of weird messages come up
> > once invoked from Sugar, but it does eventually come up.  It will flash the
> > built-in cafe camera light then proceed over to the USB camera.  You can
> > edit the preferences in Cheese to default to the USB camera.  If the USB
> > camera isnt seen in teh camera device drop-down, then for some reason it
> > isn't being handled properly at the driver level.  In terminal, check the
> > output of the lsusb command, the camera should be seen there with a nice
> > description and USB vendor./eqpt number. Once you are doen in cheese on the
> > the sugar side, unfortunately you have to stop it 'inelegantly'' as it has
> > no sugar activity button. You can use the ctrl-q, or function key back to
> > the activity wheel and kill it from there.   However, this seems to leave a
> > little stub up and running, so you may have to reboot to get it going again.
> >
> > On the other hand the successful yum install of cheese puts itself nicely
> > into the graphics submenu on the Gnome side, and behaves nicely there. You
> > can then save your microscope photos ot the fiel system (preferably on an
> > external SD card or a USB stick, then look at the photos from the Sugar
> > side.  Just remember INSTALL it as root, but run it as the normal default
> > user.
> >
> > Summary.  USB uvc compliant webcams (microscopes) should just plug in and be
> > seen by both the XO 1.0 and XO 1.5. Then yum install cheese, and use the
> > Gnome side to do any 'photos'.
> >
> > All caveats with respect to the snails-pace of the yum install are still in
> > effect ont the 1.0, we do a yum install downloadonly to a stick on a 1.5
> > (which does yum nicely), then yum localinstall from the stick to all the XO
> > 1.0's to eliminate those install hanging and memory full issues.  As an
> > added benefit, Cheese has no other dependencies when installed to 10.1.3.
> >
> > For those who saw our little tech-geek table at the SF summit, this is
> > exactly what we were demoing on the 1.5.  Daniel Drake and Paul Fox have
> > since done yeomen effort to bring the  uvc, sisusb, and ldusb drivers all
> > back into sync on the 1.0's and 1.5s at 10.1.3 .  Have fun, it really is
> > cool stuff.
> >
> > KG
> >
> > O n Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 5:45 PM, Mike Lee <curiouslee at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> [Copying everyone.]
> >>
> >> I haven't tried this with the new 10.1.3. But before that, it didn't
> >> work on the XO-1 without having to get into kernal hacking. Paul Fox
> >> confirmed that they are looking into adding support. I don't know if
> >> they have.
> >>
> >> I bought my Digimicro from DealExtreme for $31.10. The catch is they
> >> ship from Hong Kong (as I recall). It took 3-4 weeks to get the
> >> 'scope.
> >>
> >>
> >> http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11743
> >>
> >>
> >> Mike
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Cherry Withers <cwithers at ekindling.org>
> >> wrote:
> >> > Mike,
> >> >
> >> > I just ordered mine from Amazon. But we were discussing this on our
> >> > Squeakland meeting today
> >> > and wondering if you've tried this on the XO 1.0 as well and if you've
> >> > tried
> >> > other brands?
> >> > The Digimicro is hovering around $37-$45 at Amazon (without shipping and
> >> > tax). Where have you found
> >> > them for $30?
> >> >
> >> > Thank you for your help!
> >> > --Cherry
> >> >
> >> > On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Mike Lee <curiouslee at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Hi all,
> >> >>
> >> >> I ordered this Digimicro 1.3mp USB microscope and it arrived from
> >> >> China today. I was able to pretty easily get it running on an XO-1.5
> >> >> in Gnome. Photos and details here:
> >> >>
> >> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/5188951606/in/photostream/
> >> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/5188951710/in/photostream/
> >> >>
> >> >> Here's the reference I used for the installation:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> http://www.stealthcopter.com/blog/2010/03/digimicro-200x-zooming-usb-digital-microscope-in-ubuntu-linux/
> >> >>
> >> >> Mike
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Beth Santos <beth at waveplace.org>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> > Interesting microscope I found via Woot! today:
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> > http://www.suntekstore.com/1-3-mega-pixel-led-usb-digital-microscope-video-camera-10x__-230x-.html?&utm_source=woot&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=deals&utm_campaign=s0003
> >> >> >
> >> >> > For less than a solar panel you could be sending one or more of these
> >> >> > out
> >> >> > with every deployment...
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Beth
> >> >> >
> >> >> > ---
> >> >> > Beth Santos
> >> >> > Outreach Coordinator
> >> >> > Waveplace Foundation
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Tel: +1 610 797 3100 x 44
> >> >> > Fax: +1 610 797 3199
> >> >> > Cell: +1 603 661 1273
> >> >> > http://www.waveplace.org
> >> >> > Waveplace on Facebook
> >> >> > Twitter: @waveplace
> >> >> >
> >> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> >> > Health mailing list
> >> >> > Health at lists.laptop.org
> >> >> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/health
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
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