Week 3 - Troubleshoot problems and testing equipments

WEEK 3 - TROUBLESHOOT PROBLEMS AND TESTING EQUIPMENTS

Hi everyone! Lets check out our updates for week 3 😊

Last week we extracted materials and components from the laptop. Therefore, for this week, we decided to bought a laser pointer and mini torchlight from the nearest shop as a spare in case the lens went missing as well as to test the equipments according to our plan.

A laser pointer and a mini torchlight bought from Mr DIY

For a better progress of this experiment, we have sketched a simple sketch plan for our experiment.

This is our roughly sketch plan. It seems user-friendly, right ? We believe it is hassle-free for the visitors during the exhibition soon.

First of all, we need to test our equipments such as the lens magnification, polarizers from the laptop that we extracted and application to turn the phone into a webcam.

This is the image that we get without the polarizer to test the magnification of the lens. Our first sample is a hair strand of Chiam's hair huhu 😜

Our second sample is an onion. We extracted an onion layer to test the magnification of the lens, with and without the polarizer.

 Here is the image of the onion cell with and without the polarizer. The difference between these two images is the one with a polarizer film is more contrast than the image without a polarizer. Also seen here the image with the polarizer (extracted from the laptop) is a bit blurry because the polarizer have stains and scratches. 

Therefore, we decided to buy another polarizer film so that the image will be more clear. We looked for it on online websites, called a few shops and we went to several camera shops to buy the polarizer film.

Ace Hardware @ Midvalley Megamall

                              

  Camera shops @ Plaza Low Yat

After a long day, we finally got these two polarizers from one of the camera shops in Plaza Low Yat. These two polarizer films are for Samsung and iPhone users. Both of these polarizers are circular. 

Next, we would like to turn a phone into a webcam so the visitors can view the image from the smartphone on the laptop. But first, we need to install on both smartphone and laptop. The application that we installed is called DroidCam and can be connected using WiFi and USB. However, this application is only applicable for Android users only.

Testing out the application to see if it works on our smartphone and laptop. At first, we have some trouble to connect the smartphone to the laptop using USB. But after several attempts, the USB is finally connected to the laptop (Thanks God!). However, the connection must be perfectly fit to the USB port in order for the image to pop out on the laptop.

Thats all for this week from our group! 

Stay tuned for more updates!

Have a nice day!😀

XOXO 💘,

Team Sotong 

Week 2: We are on our right track! (Material extraction)

     WEEK 2 : MATERIAL EXTRACTION

After a series of discussion and suggestion by our lecturer, Dr. Woon Kai Lin, the final title that we decided to go on is "Polarizing Microscope Using Smartphone".

This title may seem shocking for some of us, as we might think "Smartphone to become a microscope??!''

                                         How is that even possible?!  😮

However, after a series of internet research and discussion among our team, we are ready to face this challenge and bring up something exciting! Below are the some updates and progression done by our group, enjoy~

As mentioned from the previous post, the major component required for a polarizing microscope is a polarizer, we are lucky enough to get a free laptop from our lecturer in order to extract the polarizer from the laptop screen! Thank you, Dr! :D

And yes some tools in the yellow box to let us open up the laptop.

But first, let's do some research about the internal component of a laptop first before opening it up to prevent any accident damage done on the laptop.

This is how a laptop screen should looks like based on the internet.

        

Time to open up and look for what we want!

After the back cover and the keyboard is opened up.

The laptop screen. Polarizer film is just so near to us now!

Taking out the PCB that attached to the monitor.

After the cover around the screen and the internal structure was removed, this is what it looks like. The polarizer film is stick firmly on the LCD glass.

Therefore we need to tear the film out.

This is exactly the essence that our group are looking for! The polarization film.

Okay, now that we have extracted the material we need, should be done for this week.

But wait, aren't it will be better if we have a lens attached on our microscope to narrow down the light beam so that we can have a more focused and sharp image on our smartphone later?

 Exactly!

We then bought a laser pointer from some random grocer to extract the lens inside. This is because laser pointer produces such a sharp point when we turned it on, there must be something inside that we are looking for!

 

This is the picture of the laser pointer that we opened it up.

And this is the reason behind why a laser pointer produces such a sharp point -- the lens!

That's all for this week from Team Sotong.

 Continue to stay tuned on our blog weekly to get our update and progression. 

Have a good day, everyone! 😁

XOXO 💘,

Team Sotong 

Week 1 - Brainstorming ideas

WEEK 1 - BRAINSTORMING IDEAS

Group name 

Team Sotong

Lecturer

Dr. Woon Kai Lin

Group member

1) Chiam Han Cheng SIB150009

2) Nurul Syahirah Binti Jaffril SIB150043

3) Nur Aqilah bt Meor Ruslan SIB150034

4) Ong Gerard SIB150044

5) Nur Izzati Arina bt Zahari SIB150038

During this week, our team has decided to have a brainstorming ideas session of the experiment that we are going to do. We have discusssed in our whatsapp group, sharing links and videos of some experiments that are related to our course. This is our first draft of the experiment that we are going to do; Polarizing microscope.

Our draft for this experiment

Therefore, as this blog may be viewed by viewers with science background or non-science background, it is therefore necessary to have some brief introduction about "What exactly is a polarizing microscope".

The diagram shown above is how a monocular polarizing microscope looks like.

Before we start, there is a term called "Birefringence" that we should all know before understanding further. "Birefringence" is actually an optical properties of certain material that having a more than one refractive index, depending on the polarization and also propagation direction of light. Example is the CaCO3 calcite shown below.

As can be seen, when a pencil is viewed through the calcite, two images are formed, this is due to the different refractive index exhibited by the calcite depending on it's internal structure that causes different polarization and also propagation direction of light. 

Now, The function of polarized light microscope is to observe specimens or samples that are visible primarily due to their optically an-isotropic character or also known as birefringent properties. The component and structure of this microscope consist mainly of a polarizer, analyzer (a term for another polarizer), which are positioned between the light source and also the ocular lens we use to observe the specimen. Diagram below shows the internal component and also outer structure of a polarized light microscope.

The working theory of the polarized microscope is that is create a contrast in the doubly refracting specimen to differentiate the qualitative and quantitative aspects of crystallographic axes that are present in the sample. Below are the more detailed working theory of the polarized light microscope.

The light that we see everyday are mostly unpolarized, which means that light is actually an electric field travelling in various direction of vector, as to be seen from the incident beam shown above. The first polarizer will filter the electric field from the incident beam and allowing only certain light wave to pass through, depending on the orientation of the polarizer. The light that are filtered is said to be polarized with respect to the direction of  propagation and all waves vibrate in the same plane. 

When the unpolarized light source passed through the first polarizer, it will be "forced" to only vibrating in a single plane, the polarized light then pass through the birefringence sample and results in two component light wave due to the unique optical property of the sample, analyzer then function to filter the two-component-light-wave and causes a retardation, thus creating image with contrast for us to view directly from the ocular lens or camera.

Therefore, our team's (Team Sotong) open lab experiment is to create a polarizing microscope using the material from our surroundings using the theory and working principles as explained above and the one that can be viewed directly from our smartphone!

        Sounds exciting, right? 😉

 Stay tuned on our blog for our team progression and updates!  

XOXO 💘,

Team Sotong