Winning Lab Report Criteria

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Scholars,

Here is a recipe for a winning module 3 report:

• Microscope documentation
  • Microscope block diagram
    • All optical elements and distances
    • It is not necessary to document mechanical construction details
    • A picture of the microscope is nice

• Characterization
  • Table of values for 10x, 40x, and 100x objectives, including
    • Theoretical magnification
    • Measured magnificaiton
    • Theoretical resolution
    • Field of view (diagonal)
  • Bright field images
    • Air Force Target, Ronchi Ruling, 4 micron latex spheres
    • 10/40/100x objectives

• Fluorescence microscopy
  • Image of fluorescence calibration slide (for flat field correction)
  • Optional: flat field corrected image of 1 micron spheres
  • Combined onion image
    • Bright field onion image with flat field corrected, fluorescent image (color) overlayed
    • Bullet point overview of processing algorithm used to produce image
  • PSF
    • PSF image (.190 micron beads) – preferably zoomed in to a few particles
    • Estimated ½ intensity width of beads
      • Was it the same in both directions?

• Particle tracking
  • Dry beads
    • X-Y plot of particle tracks and differential track
    • Plot of MSD vs. delta t
  • Brownian motion (1 and 2 micron beads in suspension)
    • X-Y plots of particle tracks (particles in different colors)
    • MSD vs. delta time plots with ensemble average
    • Estimated diffusion coefficients
    • Extra credit: estimate Avagadro’s number (see: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/109884431/ and http://www.math.princeton.edu/~mcmillen/molbio/papers/Einstein_diffusion1905.pdf)
  • Transport in an onion cell
    • X-Y plot of particle tracks
    • MSD vs delta t plot
    • Particle velocity: average, deviation
    • Extra credit: estimate the number of myosin motors per granule

--Steve