Brianna Johns
- @briannajohns
- | she/they
Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH)
Hi everybody!
I’m one of the Open Source Solutions group leaders, and each month, I’ll discuss a particular Open Science Hardware (OScH) or open source project relevant to conservation and ecology. This month, I am looking at the OpenFlexure project, a classic example of OScH, and discussing how the OpenFlexure team has created hardware that can be modified and adapted to various research contexts.
OpenFlexure as a Model for Open Science Hardware Projects
For my first post, I decided to kick things off with the OpenFlexure project. OpenFlexure is an excellent case for OScH, demonstrating the key pillars of the OScH movement, best described by the Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH) Community.
The OpenFlexure website clearly states its goal: to “make high precision mechanical positioning available to anyone with a 3D printer - for use in microscopes, micromanipulators, and more.” The main project of the OpenFlexure team is the OpenFlexure Microscope (OFM), an open-source optical microscope. The OFM is low-cost, customizable, easy to assemble, and has high-performance capabilities, making it a well-known and successful example of OScH in action.
The OFM uses 3D-printed materials and off-the-shelf components, and the nature of these components not only makes the OFM low-cost but also easy to source and assemble. In addition, the design of the 3D-printed microscope stage allows for better motor control, making the microscope capable of high-quality image acquisition. In other words, the OFM is both low-cost and high-performing. The benefits of having 3D-printed parts also mean that the device is customizable, and parts can easily be swapped out or modified.
This combination of low cost, high performance, and customizability shows the range of benefits that can happen when scientific hardware is open. These benefits include enabling research collaborations, fostering innovation, and increasing access to scientific hardware. The OpenFlexure project is rooted in an ongoing collaboration between researchers in the UK and Tanzania, with their primary focus being the use of this microscope for malaria diagnostics. Now, the OFM is being used in over 50 different countries.
The low-cost and adaptable nature of the OFM also opens the door to opportunities for local manufacturing, and a group of OScH developers and distributors are working together to create a distributed manufacturing network for the OFM.
Cross-discipline Adaptability and Uses for Conservation and Ecology
Open source devices have the potential to be modified and adapted to fit different research contexts. When a device is low cost, easy to source and assemble, and customisable, all the right cards are in place for cross-discipline adaptability.
The OFM is primarily used for diagnostic research, but in 2023, the OpenFlexure team successfully crowdfunded to build a field dissection microscope. Although the project is still in early development, it still highlights the ability of the OFM design to influence new devices in different research disciplines.
The creation of an open source, low-cost, customizable field dissection microscope means that the benefits of open science hardware, namely better reproducibility, innovation, and access, can benefit researchers in the conservation and ecology space as well.
Learn more about the OpenFlexure Project
You can learn more about the OpenFlexure project by visiting their website at https://openflexure.org/.
For more information on the OpenFlexure Microscope, I recommend checking out this paper!
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