Foldscope

It is a part of the "frugal science" movement which aims to make cheap and easy tools available for scientific use in the developing world.

[2] The Foldscope was developed by a team led by Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the Stanford School of Medicine.

[3] The project was funded by several organisations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave a grant of US$100,000 for research in November 2012.

Prakash claims that the Foldscope can survive harsh conditions, including being thrown in water or dropped from a five-story building.

[5][6] The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funded the "Ten Thousand Microscopes" project under which Prakash plans to give away 10,000 Foldscope kits to interested parties, including students for research.

Examples of uses submitted by testers include a plant pathologist in Rwanda who used it to examine fungi on banana crops and Maasai children in Tanzania who used it to check cow feces for parasites.

When tested for diagnosing schistosomiasis in Ghana, for example, it was impossible to prevent contamination from urine samples because the Foldscope must be brought up to one's face to view.

A foldscope
Assembling a Foldscope [ 1 ]
Foldscope design, components and usage.(A) CAD layout of Foldscope paper components on an A4 sheet. (B) Schematic of an assembled Foldscope illustrating panning, and (C) cross-sectional view illustrating flexure-based focusing. (D) Foldscope components and tools used in the assembly, including Foldscope paper components, ball lens , button-cell battery, surface-mounted LED, switch, copper tape and polymeric filters. (E) Different modalities assembled from colored paper stock. (F) Novice users demonstrating the technique for using the Foldscope. (G) Demonstration of the field-rugged design, such as stomping under foot. [ 1 ]