引言

Introduction

来自德国的科学家，教师和学童设计并使用乐高积木和iPhone手机镜头制作了功能齐全的模块化显微镜。该仪器易于构建，且可以解析微米大小的物体，如单个活细胞。

A fully functional modular microscope has been built using LEGO bricks and low-cost smartphone lenses. Designed by researchers, teachers and schoolchildren in Germany, the instrument is easy to build, yet it can resolve micrometre-sized objects such as individual living cells.

来自哥廷根大学&明斯特大学的生物物理学家Timo betz和他10岁的儿子在某个周末玩乐高积木时产生了制作乐高显微镜的想法: 使用这些老少皆宜的模块化塑料积木。

The idea for a LEGO microscope came to biophysicist Timo betz (from the Universities of Göttingen and Münster) and his 10 year-old son one weekend while playing with LEGO – modular plastic building blocks that are beloved by children (and many adults) worldwide.

"我的第一反应是，这太难了，因为需要精确的机芯和一些非乐高部件，"betz回忆道。"但是我的儿子想出了一系列关于如何克服这些困难的好主意。他甚至想出了一种方法，使用乐高光源来照亮样品。"

“My first reaction was that this is too hard, because of the precise movements and all the parts that are non-LEGO,” recalls betz. “But my son came up with a series of great ideas on how to overcome the difficulties that I explained to him; he even figured out a way to use a LEGO light source to illuminate the samples.”

转载自physicsworld:

"High-resolution microscope is made from LEGO bricks"

少年作者 

Junior author

到周末结束时，这对父子二人组已经制造了一个原型。然而，即使在贝茨的同事巴特·沃斯（Bart Vos）的帮助下，也花了一年多的时间对设计进行微调，编写施工计划并验证仪器的实用性。现在，这三人已经在The Biophysicist上发表一篇论文中详细描述了乐高显微镜(当然，贝茨的儿子是共同作者)。

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35459/tbp.2021.000191

By the end of the weekend, the father-son duo had built a prototype. However, even with assistance from betz’s colleague Bart Vos, it took over a year to fine-tune the design, write construction plans and validate the instrument’s usefulness. Now, the trio has described the microscope in a paper published in The Biophysicist (with betz’s son co-author, naturally).

最终的设计类似于一个简单的乐高积木塔，但它隐藏了一些精巧的功能（见图）。例如，为了提供精确的焦点调整，团队在设计物镜支架时必须"突破砖砌系统的极限"。这包含一个带有齿轮蜗杆螺钉的齿轮齿条，每次完全旋转可实现约3 mm的变焦。

The final design resembles a simple LEGO tower, but it hides some clever features (see figure). For example, to provide precise focus adjustment, the team had to “push the limits of the brick system” when designing the objective holder. This incorporates a gear rack with a gear worm screw that achieves approximately 3 mm of travel for every full rotation.

唯一的非乐高部件是显微镜的透镜。为了获得高放大倍率，透镜可以从低成本的iPhone5二手机中拆解而得，并将透镜连接到带有透明胶带和玻片的乐高积木上。通过使用这些iPhone镜头，显微镜可以达到254x的放大倍率。

The only non-LEGO parts are the microscope’s lenses. For high magnification, these can be cannibalized from a low-cost replacement iPhone 5 camera module and then attached to a LEGO brick with transparent tape and a glass coverslip. Using these plastic iPhone lenses, the microscope can achieve 254× magnification.

分步搭建指南

Step-by-step building instructions 

然而，对于乐高显微镜的创作者来说，最重要的是这些显微镜能够在世界各地的教室和家庭中建造和使用，以学习光学知识。为了进一步实现这一目标，他们创建了构建说明和分步教程，以指导人们完成搭建并了解显微镜的相关光学特性。此外，他们还从当地的学校招募了八名9-13岁的孩子，他们的任务是进行显微镜制作尝试，并展示这种动手活动如何帮助学习。

Most important to the creators, however, is that the microscope can be built and used in classrooms and homes around the world to learn about optics. To further this aim, they created build instructions and a step-by-step tutorial to guide people through construction while learning about the relevant optical characteristics of a microscope. Moreover, they enlisted eight 9–13-year-olds from a local Münster school who were tasked with building the microscope in an attempt to show how such a hands-on activity assists learning.

鉴于COVID-19的限制，研究人员无法看到孩子们在课堂上参与显微镜活动。因此，他们创建了一个工具包，孩子们可以带回家，旁边是一份调查问卷，以便在玩工具包之前和之后填写。调查显示，孩子们对显微镜的认知在参与制作乐高显微镜后几乎翻了一倍。

Most important to the creators, however, is that the microscope can be built and used in classrooms and homes around the world to learn about optics. To further this aim, they created build instructions and a step-by-step tutorial to guide people through construction while learning about the relevant optical characteristics of a microscope. Moreover, they enlisted eight 9–13-year-olds from a local Münster school who were tasked with building the microscope in an attempt to show how such a hands-on activity assists learning.

乐在其中的实践

Fun and informative activities

这些孩子还用他们新建的显微镜进行了几次实验。科学家们认为这些是有趣和信息丰富的活动。实验包括: (a) 实时观察水从盐溶液薄膜中蒸发时的结晶; (b)记录暴露于渗透性休克的红洋葱表皮细胞的色素沉着变化; (c, d)观察微小的游泳生物的运动，如卤虫虾和水蚤。

These children also conducted several experiments with their newly built microscope. These were suggested by the researchers as interesting, fun and informative activities. The experiments included watching crystallization in real-time as water evaporates from a thin film of salt solution; recording pigmentation changes to red onion epidermal cells exposed to an osmotic shock; and observing the movement of tiny swimming organism such as Artemia shrimp and water fleas.

这并不是第一次用乐高制造显微镜。2013年，加州大学旧金山分校的一群研究生设计了一种名为LegoScope的类似显微镜。然而，LegoScope需要一个定制的物镜和3D打印的零件。

This is not the first time a microscope has been made of LEGO. In 2013, a group of postgraduate students at the University of California, San Francisco designed a similar microscope called LegoScope. However, this instrument required a custom objective and 3D-printed parts.

betz认为，对于父母来说，新的乐高显微镜用现成且可重复使用的零件降低了组装障碍，非常适合进行简单的显微镜原理展示。

betz argues that the new LEGO microscope’s readily available and reusable parts “lower the barrier, especially for parents”, making it perfect for simply demonstrating the principles of microscopy.

"开发这个实际上很有趣，"betz说。"我只是希望孩子和他们的父母有机会意识到，即使使用简单的工具，也可以做一些了不起的事情。

“It was actually a lot of fun to develop this,” he says. “I just hope that children and their parents have a chance to realize here that even with simple tools, one can do amazing things.”

支持性内容

Supportive content

相关The Biophysicist文章:

"Designing a High-Resolution, LEGO based Microscope for an Educational Setting" 

安东尼·范·列文虎克在17世纪发明了显微镜，这是微观世界研究时代的开始。虽然我们现在已经知道他观察到的"小动物"是什么，但微观和纳米世界是生物物理研究的一个取之不尽、用之不竭的话题，而光学显微镜是首选的工具。

The invention of microscopy in the 17th century by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was the start of an era of research in the micro-world. Although we know by now what the “little animals” are that he observed, the micro- and nano-world is an inexhaustible topic for biophysical research, for which the light microscope is the instrument of choice.

我们设计了许多实验，可以使用这款乐高显微镜和易于接近的材料进行，同时探索各种生物物理主题。最后，我们证明了这款乐高显微镜可以在教育环境中使用，让一组9至13岁的学生制作显微镜，并通过问卷展示他们在理解显微镜方面的进展。为了简化乐高显微镜的使用，我们为学校环境或帮助父母和孩子以自主方式发现生物物理学和显微镜设计了一个循序渐进的工作流程。所有材料，包括零件清单、建筑平面图、工作流程和项目建议，都可以在补充材料和GitHub上找到。

We design a number of experiments that can be carried out with this LEGO microscope and easily accessible materials, while exploring various biophysical themes. Finally, we demonstrate that this LEGO microscope can be used in an educational setting by letting a group of 9- to 13-y-old students build the microscope and demonstrate their progress in understanding of microscopy with a questionnaire. To ease the usage of the LEGO microscope, we designed a step-by-step workflow for a school setting or for helping parents and children discover biophysics and microscopy in an autonomous way. All materials, including parts lists, building plans, workflows and project suggestions are found in the Supplemental Material and on GitHub.

乐高显微镜的完整搭建指南请见此Github链接

https://github.com/tobetz/LegoMicroscope

水木视界丨iss. 4

每周分享结构生物学前沿进展