Observation of Brownian Motion

Motion of polystyrene beads and bacteria -- Analyzing and capturing movies with LoggerPro
Bring the following pieces of equipment to your lab bench:

  1. Computer
  2. Microscope
  3. Microscope video capture kit
Let's get the video capture going:
  1. Boot up your computer
  2. 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).
  3. Hook the camera up to the yellow plug and plug in the power supply
  4. Start logger pro
  5. Use the pull down menu to insert .. capture video
  6. You should get a new window. If you block the camera with your hand, the window should go from light to dark.
  7. If that works, capture a short video.
  8. Where is your video stored? You will need these later.
  9. Be sure to record file names, their content, and brief descriptions in your notebook ... as well as the rest of your proceedures here.
  10. 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.
Collecting your data
  1. 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.
  2. Repeat this for .5 micron and 1 micron diameter spheres.
  3. Plot the position vs. time data in logger pro. How does it compare to the simulations done on Friday and for the warmup?
  4. Calculate the total distance traveled vs. time. Compare these data to the plots made in the 30 coin flips exercise.
  5. Repeat the above for bacterial samples. What can you conclude about bacterial motion. Does it have a random component? A deterministic component?
  6. Important! Load your video clips to the server: 128.164.237.20