"I Want To See The Virus"
My youngest has been asking me to buy a microscope because he "wants to see the virus". While I told him that we can just check out pictures and videos from the web, he was not convinced and really wanted to see it with his own eyes.
Of course, we cannot see the virus with our naked eye and a microscope is a must. I've been planning to buy a microscope when the current school year started to aid our homeschooling but wasn't able to. I did not know where to buy a compound microscope online, let alone it is pricey. However, I came about this digital microscope and made a mental note to try to buy that one day when the situation arises and the budget allows.
Digital Microscope
I found this Digital Microscope on Amazon that costed AED 65.29 ($17.74). It only has 1600x magnification so I had to set my children's expectation that we won't be able to see the virus using this, but we can play around with it and see small objects and details using it.
When the delivery came last week, we immediately unboxed the parcel and checked what was inside the box.
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Package size:
14.8 x 12.2 x 4.6 cm
Package weight:
250 g
Inside the box:
microscope - the microscope has 0-1600x magnification, with 8 pieces LED light, USB for PC and power supply
metal stand - easily slip on and clip the device, provide support and easily adjust height and angle
CD - software installer
calibration ruler
First Impressions
I honestly did not expect a lot from this package and ordered it just to make my son happy. :) My first apprehension was that I won't be able to connect it to my laptop because my CD rom is not working. Thankfully, there is a website where the software can easily be downloaded.
The device itself easily connected to the software and we were able to use it immediately. I could not find a way to use the calibration ruler so we just made do with the images we can see as we manually adjust the knob.
The kids looked for different objects to observe under the microscope. The display is shown on our computer screen.
Playing With The Digital Microscope
Here are some of the objects that we observed:
A Leaf
Well, I can say, not bad. We could see lots of details on the leaf that we would normally not observe using just our eyes.
The spot at the center is a small damage on the leaf.
I was honestly amused by this. Look at this shot of the petiole of the same leaf. It kinda looks like a celery stalk. :D
Tissue Paper
How do you think a tissue paper would look like, magnified 1600x?
You can actually see the woven strands and hmmm, I have no idea what those black specks are. The tissue looks pretty white to me.
More Strands
So it seems that the microscope captures strands nicely so we tried to put a few more under it to observe.
Can you guess what this is?
It's my scarf!
Any guesses for this one?
It's a strand of hair!
Other Interesting Stuff
This one got me convinced that I have to drink more water and use more moisturizing lotion. LOL. So yeah, this is the skin of my hand. It looks so old and creepy. :D
Do you think you're tired of your marriage? Just look at what a 14-year-old wedding ring looks like. It looks just as old and battered, so don't complain. LOL
The software not only allows you to take snaps of the object you are observing, but you can also make a video recording. The resolution is not that sharp, but you can still make out the details from it.
It seems that the device also has OTG support but I have not yet tried it. I will make sure we try that next and see if we can find more things to observe using my mobile phone.
Final Thoughts
As expected, my son still asked for an actual microscope because obviously, we were not able to see the virus using the digital microscope. We still had tons of fun while using it, including me.
This can be used as an educational tool or as a toy (for the kids and kids at heart like me). It actually sparks the imagination and feeds the curiosity as we keep on exploring even the simplest things around us.
I look forward to more things to observe with my children and have heaps of fun using it.
