MicroscopyEducation
Foldscope: Increasing Science Accessibility Worldwide
Paola Moreno-Roman* and Katie Bobick Foldscope Instruments, Inc., 2625 Middlefield Road, #938, Palo Alto, CA 94306 *
paola@foldscope.com
Abstract: Foldscope Instruments, Inc. creates and distributes low- cost, high-quality scientific tools to communities around the world to help advance education, research, and medical diagnostics. The Foldscope—a high-quality microscope created for less than a dollar in parts—was created in 2015. To date, the Foldscope has reached 1.6 million people worldwide in over 160 countries. A few notable uses for the Foldscope include identification of microscopic eggs of agri- cultural pests in India, creation of a catalog of the biodiversity of soil arthropods in the Amazon, detection of fake currency and medicine, following toxic blooms, detection of bacteria in water samples, and mapping of pollen diversity in a city landscape.
Keywords: low-cost, paper microscope, Foldscope, affordable, education
Introduction Foldscope Instruments, Inc. is a San Francisco Bay
Area start-up with the explicit mission to magnify curi- osity worldwide. Our first and flagship product is the Foldscope, a paper-based microscope that can be manu- factured for about $1 in parts. Foldscope was invented by Manu Prakash and Jim Cybulski when Jim was a PhD student in Manu’s laboratory at Stanford University. To date, 1.6 million Foldscopes have been distributed to over 150 countries around the world. Te Foldscope is an ultra-low-cost origami-based micro-
scope capable of imaging in brightfield, darkfield, and fluo- rescence modes. Merging principles of optical design with origami enables high-volume fabrication of microscopes from 2D media. Flexure mechanisms, created via folding, enable a flat, compact design. Structural loops in folded paper provide kinematic constraints as a means for passive self-alignment. Tis light, rugged instrument can survive harsh field conditions while providing a diversity of imaging capabilities, thus serving wide-ranging applications for cost- effective, portable microscopes in science and education. Although it costs less than a dollar to construct a Fold-
scope, it can provide 140× magnification with a 2-micron resolution, weighs less than two nickels (8.8 g), is small enough to fit in a pocket (70×20×2 mm3
), requires no exter-
nal power, and can survive being dropped from a 3-story building or being stepped on by a person. Its minimalistic, scalable design is inherently application-specific instead of general-purpose, providing less functionality at dramatically reduced cost.
42 doi:10.1017/S1551929522000633
Figure 1: Top to bottom: Camp SiP students worked on a Foldscope project for a week. Online Foldscope training for ECISD educators. One ECISD educator learns how to assemble her Foldscope.
www.microscopy-today.com • 2022 May
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