During the academic year, F08 - S09, Olin undergraduates Sean Calvo, Caitlin Greeley, Stephani Gulbrandsen, and Leif Jentoft designed, built, and tested a flexible automated microscopy platform capable of imaging an area up to 100mm x 100mm with a resolution of 10 microns at 4.8 second per square mm. It reduces the cost of performing microfluidics research and increases the speed by allowing researchers to easily reconfigure and expand the system to their changing needs. Microfludics research often requires imaging areas of up to several square centimeters at a 10-micron-level resolution over a duration of hours to days to measure experimental results such as protein crystallization. The Olin SCOPE team consisting of senior engineering majors and faculty supervisors from Brandeis and Olin created a system that performs such measurements and is highly flexible to adapt to the changing needs of researchers, with a flexible mechanical design including a standardized optics mount for easily changing the optics system, an electrical system that can be expanded to control additional related hardware such as syringe pumps and thermal stages, a wide travel to accommodate a range of samples, and a user-friendly interface to make it accessible to non-experts. Download highlight.pdf
