Discovery Line

Embrace your research with
our new Discovery Line.

Overview

Discovery Line

Analog optics

+

control & imaging

+

+

Filters, Splitters & Light

Interference

add-On for Core

BETA Coming Soon

To Be announced

add-On for Electronics

Core

Introduction & Challenge

Why can a lens magnify an object? How does a cinema projector work? Why is the image of a Galilean telescope more compact than that of a Kepler telescope? What’s the difference between finite and infinitely-corrected optics in a smartphone microscope?

Learning kits in conjuction with digital learning material get you started to explore the depth of optics

Optics gives you the answers. But unfortunately, only a small part of this highly interdisciplinary field that supports our daily lives in telecommunications, life sciences or astronomy is taught in schools and universities. Intuitive tools to teach the core principles of optics and photonics are urgently needed to challenge the knowledge in textbooks. So which topic do you want to focus on?

Core

NEW

The DISCOVERY Line teaches you microscopy from the very basics to advanced topics. The whole course is built upon the analog Core kit, which brings you a set of lenses, mirrors and our very cubes. Build up to 9 setups, including e.g. a smartphone microscope, together with our printed or digital manual and start exploring the world of microscopy.

Learning kits in conjuction with digital learning material get you started to explore the depth of optics

Core

Solution

With Core we present a modular optics educational kit in which optics becomes tangible. Starting with the core elements, you learn the function of lenses, mirrors and objectives before the individual modules are assembled into complex optical setups such as telescopes and microscopes. Not only do you learn the basic physical principles in a playful way, but you also directly expand your biological knowledge by imaging self-fabricated or your own biological samples. With your own mobile phone, you can directly take the picture of the sample and take your first steps as a data scientist by processing this raw data.

Core

Application

There are many paths from the individual lens to the finished microscope.

After our tutorial ends, the adventure really begins. Explore your own environment by taking distributed samples and analyzing them, extend our basic kit with new components or develop your own modules. openUC2 is open-source! You can find all essential design files on Github and extend your existing system as you like. Challenge yourself and extend the toolbox to e.g. detect micro-plastic in drinking water and share it with the growing and very active community!

The Discovery Core kit helps you get familiar with optics in a playful way

Core

Curious?
Contact us for
a custom quotation.

Contact us for a custom quotation.

Go Further with our Add-On Kits

Go Further with our
Add-On Kits

ELEcTRONICS

NEW

Electronics extends Core by a digital control unit together with a software suite, a controllable linear-stage, an array of individually controllable LEDs and an RGB-camera. It empowers you to build your first, automated imaging workflow and lays the foundation for professional data-processing. Enhance your smartphone microscope to a proper, remote-controllable microscope.

Soon

Interference

BETA

Interference extends Core by a set of mirrors, polarizers, spatial filters and a small-band light-source to let you explore the polarisation behaviour of light and the relation between Fourier and Image-Plane. It empowers you to get insight into phenomenas of wave optics like e.g. self-interference of a coherent light-source. Build setups like: the famous Abbe-Experiment, Back-Focal-Plane manipulation (BFP), Michelson- and Mach-Zehnder interferometer.
Concepts from geometric optics to wave optics to quantum optics can be explained with the elements and literally made comprehensible. device at your site, but can be commissioned anywhere in the world with just a few simple steps. INTERFERENCE is still under development and more information will be available soon.

ELECTRONICS

Introduction & Problem

Microscopy is one of the most important tools in modern research. Since the discovery of the first cells with simple lenses, laboratory set-ups have developed into complex scientific instruments, whereby high demands on optical resolution drive price and complexity. The ability to “quickly” develop and test a setup is reserved for an expert, which unfortunately means that the interdisciplinarity of the microscope is completely lost.

In addition to the optical requirements, the interaction of automated hardware control and image evaluation is becoming increasingly important. Commercial devices lack an open interface to link available code and the data produced. A development towards automated robotic microscopy on a broad scale is impossible.

ELECTRONICS

NEW

Electronics extends Core by a digital control unit together with a software suite, a controllable linear-stage, an array of individually controllable LEDs and an RGB-camera. It empowers you to build your first, automated imaging workflow and lays the foundation for professional data-processing. Enhance your smartphone microscope to a proper, remote-controllable microscope.

Learning kits in conjuction with digital learning material get you started to explore the depth of optics

ELECTRONICS

Solution

With a programmable controller, actuators, an LED array and a laser, the openUC2  Electronics kit brings optics to life. Whether you need a fast focus stack of cells in an incubator using bright-, dark-field  or phase-contrast or want to phase-tune your Michelson interferometer (built with the DISCOVERY Interference kit), the expandable Electronics kit provides the controlling modules and user-interface to make it happen. Complex setups that would otherwise be demonstrated in front of the students can be quickly replicated and expanded by everyone individually.

ELECTRONICS

Application

With the opportunity to develop your own modules you can take on your own challenges and get creative with the actuators and sensors. How about, for example, a compact device that uses a pump and a micro-fluidic chip to automatically check pond water for micro-plastic? 

A compact device that screens pond water using micro-fluidics

Discovery Line

Contact us for
a custom quotation
for electronics.

Contact us for a custom quotation.

cubes + Puzzle Pieces

9x cubes, 10x puzzle pieces our very basis to build functional units and combine them. The whole is more than the sum of its individual parts.

Mirror

2x mirrors (45°, front-surface). Change propagation direction of light to e.g. build compact setups

Lens

3x convex (2x 50mm, 1x 100mm), 1x concave (1x -50mm) lens 
Learn and understand basic ideas in imaging and combine them to build e.g. telescopes

RMS Mount

combination to image small samples and observe them e.g. by add

Sample Mount

Clip-based holder with which a specimen fixed on a carrier glass can be held in the beam path. 

Eyepiece

observe samples with your smartphone

Sample Box

2x prepared biological sample in a multi-slot sample-box, detect fine structures of the microcosmos! Samples are selected randomly, so which ones will you get?

LED-TOrch

1x LED-torch, tested light source to illuminate your sample

Printed Manual

1x printed manual, a complete introduction about basic functionalities of the included components and a guided coarse how to combine them

USC-Camera

1x USB-camera (RGB), enables (driverless) digital image acquisition, time-lapse imaging and more

oUC2e

1x oUC2e, all digital components and play with them

Controller

1x Controller, orchestrate all digital components and play with them

Z-STAGE

1x motorized z-stage, <1µm Z-resolution, Reduced tumbling, Metal-based, Reduced backlash, Durable, 30mm working range, RMS thread (modifiable); covers a 2×1 cube volume → enables automated z-focusing

GUI control suite

software interface to control all components, take images and start processing them (OR use blockly to learn simple programming of imaging routines on a microscope)