A digital microscope for kids - any recommendations?

Posted by John Oreopoulos on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/A-digital-microscope-for-kids-any-recommendations-tp7082751.html

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Hello list server,

This is not a confocal question, but I figure the people here might have some good experience with this. I have a 7-year old nephew who says he wants to find a cure cancer someday. I figure the best Christmas gift for him this year would therefore be a decent children's microscope. My problem is that there seems to be hundreds of different kids microscope brands, some with just eyepieces, some that can be interfaced to a computer via USB, etc. Does anyone here have any recommendations for one model brand over another?

Ron Vale makes a good argument for having kids go straight to digital microscopes instead of using eyepieces (and many modern research grade microscopes don't require eyepieces either):

http://microscopy4kids.org/
http://microscopy4kids.org/webpage/pages/whydiglookma.html

My only issue with this is that my nephew does not have access to a computer of his own. I think what would be better is a kids microscope that hooks up to a television screen directly, and these do exist. For example:

http://www.bonpal.com/product/usb-microscope/bp-m8200t.html
(no commercial interest)

And the other great thing about a pocket TV microscope like that is that it has a built in LED light source. So, what do you think? This is isn't so different from when list server members ask for opinions on various confocal microscopes, is it? Commercial responses offline to me are welcome as well.

Thanks, and a happy upcoming winter holiday to all confocalists out there!


John Oreopoulos
Research Assistant
Spectral Applied Research
Richmond Hill, Ontario
Canada
www.spectral.ca