Assignment 4: finding and measuring things

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20.309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement

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Overview

Congratulations on completing assignment 3. Now you can say you built your own epifluorescence microscope and used it to image mammalian cells. How cool is that?

The in-lab part of this assignment is straightforward. You will take a fluorescent image of tiny microspheres for measuring resolution, and then you will record short movies of larger microspheres diffusing in glycerol. Easy. If your microscope is in shape, you ought to be able to get the lab part done in well under an hour. (The tiny microspheres do not produce very much light. Sometimes people struggle a bit to get them in focus. Hint: make sure your microscope is well-adjusted before you look at really tiny, dim things.)

The out-of-lab components of this assignment will involve writing some hardcore MATLAB code. You will simulate data, use nonlinear fitting to measure the size of beads in an image, and track particles through frames of a movie. Many students find that developing the code for this assignment is challenging and that it can take longer than expected. Please don't hesitate to work on your code in 16-336 during lab hours. The instructors are happy to work alongside you to help you get through MATLAB's many curiosities and frustrations.


Warning.jpg Warning: Assignment 5 will heavily build off of the code you write in Assignment 4. Drop at your own risk!!


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