The Community Microscope Kit, which I led development on at Public Lab, is an affordable microscope made from everyday materials, including a webcam, bolts, and rubber bands. It can be assembled in about 30 minutes and was originally designed to photograph silica particles, a form of air pollution from frac sand mining. The microscope is powerful enough to photograph 10 micron air pollution particles.

By lowering the barrier to getting a microscope, this kit helps make microscopic photography a tool for collecting otherwise invisible environmental evidence in visual form. While building your own microscope isn’t necessary to make use of one, it’s far more affordable, and encourages remixing and adaptation, and encourages divergent designs and uses.

Microbrews

MICROBREWS is a series of social events hosted at bars (or coffee shops) where people can use microscopes while they talk and hang out in an informal setting. I have hosted MICROBREWS in Providence, Rhode Island (at AS220 Industries), Valdivia, Chile, and Almaty, Kazakhstan, and it’s remarkable how different these events are from a more formal workshop or class. Contact me to talk about hosting your own MICROBREWS, and feel free to use the posters available here.

The Community Microscope is based on the open source LifePatch microscope, the Hackteria microscope, the OpenFlexure Microscope, and Max Liboiron’s work at CLEAR (#13503), among other sources.

Images CC-BY-SA Jeffrey Yoo Warren & Public Lab contributors