My foldscopes came in the mail the other day. I had almost forgot that I signed up for them, but there they were in my work mailbox.
If you don't know what a foldscope is, you should check out this video. It's a paper microscope (the lenses are tiny bubbles of glass, but the rest of the thing is entirely paper). From where I sit, that's pretty badass. Imagine what one can do with a cheap, paper microscope. Imagine what one's classes could do if every student had one. They're not there just yet. The beta testing kid that I recieved only had 2 foldscopes. But it also came with a high-power lense, a light source, slide prep materials, and a mounting kit for a cellphone. So that's seems like a pretty great start to me.
I only had enough time prior to the start of the holiday break to fold them, and get a quick image of a hydra slide up in one of them, but I will definitely be spending more time playing with my cool new toy in the new year. I imagine I'll have a followup post or two once I get more use out of them. But right now, I just wanted to show them off. Hence this post :)