Hi Nick,
We have the $30 Bionic Eye with our kids. It was basically a 200x CMOS
camera that put out an NTSC signal to the TV. I strongly recommend it.
Though I played with it more than they :-)
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=eyeclops&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=15384889591559532059&ei=WrnpTLarHZTWtQO3kuCwCw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFEQ8wIwBg#
The newer version has an LCD screen, 400x zoom, multiple lenses, usb
memory, battery power which would make it a lot more portable and
useful. If it were me, I would splurge for this and I bet it won't get
discarded as quickly due to having to be hooked to a TV.
http://www.amazon.com/Eyeclops-61081-EyeClops-BioniCam/dp/B00153C5KY
It's nice that you use it to magnify all sorts of things without
having to use microphone slides. Of course, it's not as traditional
and may not feel as "science-y" but who cares about that... :-)
Your free to long-term borrow our cyclops.
-S
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On Nov 21, 2010, at 12:26 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
H’lo everybody,
Does anybody have any hands-on experience with purchasing a digital
usb microscope for a child?
EVERYBODY seems to be making these things now and the prices range
from 50 to a thousand dollars. It seems like a REALLY great
opportunity to get ripped off. No clear standards, no basis of
comparison.
My goal is to get one good enough so that my grandson can see single
celled creatures moving around in pond scum. Is 150x enough, or do
we need 200x?
Issues:
Magnification. Are the magnification ratios comparable between
manufacturers. It seems that some manufacturers are getting high
ratings by digital, rather than optical means. Is that fair? Or
even by telling you to move the microscope away from the subject.
Is there any way to get a handle on the quality of the optics? Will
I care? If there is no change in OPTICAL magnification, then
magnification boils down to lighting and resolution, right?
Resolution: is megapixels the proper measure of resolution in these
systems?
Lighting. The microscope itself has led lights on it. Some 4, some
8. For higher magnfications, more light is needed. How much? More
led’s can raise the price substantially.
Image capture: Some seem to contain a camera, some perhaps just to
pass the image through to a computer. Not clear how this makes a
difference, given that the “end user” is a computer, in any case.
Stand: Stands are extra and range from 14 to 100 bucks. Does it
make a difference
Operating System: Many of these things seem to top out at Vista or XP.
Seller: Lord, I would pay a little extra to deal with somebody who
knew what they were doing!
Anybody have any thoughts? Please assume that I haven’t a clue what
I am up to, here.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/nthompson
http://www.cusf.org
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