Tangible: Motion of Chloroplasts and ciliates-- Analyzing and capturing movies with LoggerPro
Bring the following pieces of equipment to your lab bench:Let's get the video capture going:
- Computer
- USB video capture device
- Camera
- Power supply
- Microscope
Calibrating the microscope
- Boot up your computer
- Once it has started up, plug the USB capture device into the USB port (you may have to use the one on the back of the machine).
- Hook camera up to the yellow plug and plug in the power supply
- Start logger pro
- Use the pull down menu to insert .. capture video
- You should get a new window. If you block the camera with your hand, the window should go from light to dark.
- If that works, capture a short video.
- Where is your video stored? You will need these later.
- Be sure to record file names, their content, and brief descriptions in your notebook ... as welll as the rest of your proceedures here.
Collecting your own data
- The microscope caliper is a metallized pattern of 10 micron and 100 micron spaced lines. As it is going around the lab, discuss with you group mates how you will calibrate the length scale on your microscopes. You will need to use these calibrations throughout the semester.
- Once you are doen and you are waiting for the microscope caliper, look at the file sizes of the movies you have downloaded, do they make sense? How large was the original file?
- Import the files into logger pro. View the 2 fps movie. Describe the motion. For example: Do all chloroplasts move with the same speed? Same velocity? Is there motion uniform?
- Test these question quantitatively: plot x, y vs. t and calculate velocities. Can you provide a rough estimate of the length scale? How would you calculate the speed of a given chloroplast? (Hint: Use the dot product)
- In a new loggerpro file, load the ciliate movie into logger pro. Practice tracking the motion of a paramecium. Do the same for another ciliate. Which are faster? Do they move with constant velocity? Discuss the motion and forces that might be acting on the protists with your fellow group members.
- Once you have calibrated each objective on your microscope, then you are ready to capture your own film clips. Place a few drops of solution in the multi-well plates and place a coverslip over the top. Carefully place this on the microscope. Look for ciliates of various size, film them, and quantitatively characterize their motion.
- Now get a sample of the aquatic plant leaf (), place it on a microscope slide with a drop of water, and cover with a coverslip. Examine under various powers of magnification. Can you observe the chloroplasts in motion? As above, quantitatively characterize the motion of chloroplasts in different regions of the viewing field.