One of the things I like about the Maker Faires is the feedback you get. You meet all sorts of interesting people. Some are technical, many are not — but love to see the stuff. And I love getting feedback and ideas from others.

Some ideas from teachers:

• The Wet Slide problem. One teacher mentioned that viewing “pond life” (a drop of water) and showing it to the kids is a problem. By the time you’ve focused on an organism, it’s moved. The AutoScope would allow the teacher to project the slide onto a screen and then follow the critters with the remote control. Almost turns the process into a video game!
• A Pathologist can use it as a teaching/test tool. For example, s/he locates items they want the students to find and identify. Students then take the slide and must find and tell the teach the coordinates/region they found the item in.

After telling the story the 100th time (trust me, I didn’t mind!) I realized that the scope could be used for remote analysis of slides. Let’s say you’re in the middle of nowhere, but have a microscope and this setup — you could allow a pathologist, or other physician, from anywhere in the world to control your scope. No need to ship or digitize the slides.

The cost factor was also a great turn-on. The commercial products, which include controlled stages and scanning, are just so expensive. The AutoScope allows not only schools access at a low price point, but also under-served communities, around the world.

While many were happy enough to look at a slide (the kids loved it) I found a number of older adults were very pleased with the project. The idea of making an expensive endeavor affordable. The ability for serving communities that can’t afford local pathologists. Helping people throughout the world. The reaction was really wonderful. I had more than one group walk away talking about how they could use this in their school or hospital. And, the most satisfying for me, people walking away thinking that the world is a better place — because there are folks out there making things to help humanity.