Just to give some background…
The workshop was a collaboration between myself (through one man company) and the local science center Vattenhallen, provided as the course Sjölabbet (Swedish only) aimed towards teachers (teaching age 15 - 19). The costs were shared so that the teachers could bring their microscopes back to school. The spots were quickly filled with multiple being on the reserve list. The only prerequisite was that they brought a laptop with ethernet-cable with them. The initiative was a combination of my application of the OFM (aquatic documentation / citizen science initiative, https://pkiw.github.io/) as well as plain promotion of the OFM in itself (as my other objective is to encourage the creation of more microscopes in general). Vattenhallen provided the facility as well as prepared servings for two coffee breaks as well as lunch. They also shared one of their in-house engineers to help me out with issue throughout the workshop. I helped him assemble an OFM a few days beforehand, which gave him sufficient insights to also assist the participants.
Workshop proceedings:
I handed out printed versions of the web-assembly-instructions (dosen’t appreciate being printed!) and had a projector streaming the official assembly instructions. People with laptops were recommended to have the web-instructions open. I was also building a microscope in parallel so that I could demonstrate useful grips (e.g. assembly of actuators), and I aimed for an approximate 4 h very calm build pace. Amongst 8 teachers the first OFM was done after ~3 h and the last one after ~5 h. There are a few interesting aspects here that could save time. E.g. I did not want to touch their builds too much, since that takes away the feeling of having built it yourself, I only gave instructions from the side. More active help can of course speeds up the process. Being alone with 8 people would have broken the schedule. So for this crowd and setup I think one person can handle ~5 - 6 builders.
Results
Everyone left with a calibrated and tested microscope and got to look at some algae (great work!). We only had one real issue, a malfunctioning camera which was then replaced. The participants were very impressed by the instrument and of the experience of building one! I did not force them to fill out the evaluation on site, but rather over email, so I am still waiting for some additional feedback.
I also provided the participants with extra material (Dropbox), like a simplified user manual (Lathund) for operating the microscope and a content-list, hopefully encouraging them to initiate a workshops themselves:
Preparation work:
- Collect printed/mechanical and electronic pieces (10-20% extra in case of accidents/malfunctions)
- Collect tools (Allen key + PH0-screw + gripper + printed tools + oil)
- Prepare printed versions of Assembly Instructions
- Prepared SD-cards (Flash img + installation. Don’t forget to hand out usernames and passwords)
Useful related notes:
- I should have split the building-part and application-part (looking at algae) into separate days. Since the application part depends on all having their microscopes ready, I couldn’t really get started looking at algae until after ~5h. It would have been better with a separate session dedicated for application, which can still be of relevance in the future.
- Don’t print main body in a dark color. It makes the cam-platform screw hard to see when mounting the optics module.
- Test cameras prior.
- Table size and constellation, accessibility and visibility. The more table space the better for each participant. Having their own table is preferable if possible. Our room was not large enough to fit the tables so to give more space when jumping between participants. Tight rows (like image) is not recommended…
Feel free to take inspiration from this setup and documentation, and feel free to distribute as you wish.
More OFM workshop related info can be found under the workshop-tag