Motion of polystyrene beads and bacteria -- Analyzing and capturing movies with LoggerPro
Bring the following pieces of equipment to your lab bench:Let's get the video capture going:
- Computer
- Microscope
- Microscope video capture kit
Collecting your data
- 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 the 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 well as the rest of your proceedures here.
- Check your microscope calibration with the microscope caliper. This is a metallized pattern of 10 micron and 100 micron spaced lines. You will use the Levy-counting chambers for this lab. Place several drops of water on each one and cover with a coverslip. Now calibrate the grid of lines on the Levy chamber against the microscope caliper. Repeat for all objectives up to 40x.
- Once you have calibrated each objective on your microscope, then you are ready to capture your own film clips of brownian motion. Dry your Levy chamber and place a few drops of the 3 micron polystyrene sphere solution in it and a coverslip over the top. Carefully place this on the microscope. Measure the size of your spheres, film them, and quantitatively characterize their motion.
- Repeat this for .5 micron and 1 micron diameter spheres.
- Plot the position vs. time data in logger pro. How does it compare to the simulations done on Friday and for the warmup?
- Calculate the total distance traveled vs. time. Compare these data to the plots made in the 30 coin flips exercise.
- Repeat the above for bacterial samples. What can you conclude about bacterial motion. Does it have a random component? A deterministic component?
- Important! Load your video clips to the server: 128.164.237.20