Collaboration Day Coinciding with Mother's Day
The collaboration day happened to fall on Mother's Day. Not many people came, but fortunately, the number of items to be distributed was also small. We finished by 3 PM, and it was great to still catch some sunlight by the time we wrapped up! (Also, I passed by Lion Maru four times today, and he was loyally guarding his spot each time, haha.)
Since the arrival of the 3D printer fleet, the club's tools have evolved further. This time, we upgraded the first lens of the macro lens kit to a snap-on structure. Every time I see a full basket of printed small parts, it's incredibly impressive!
One lively topic of conversation today was the recently developed WALL-E, based on TAIDE and Llama3. WALL-E is our club's first large language model, and it has been made available for everyone to use on Discord. After fine-tuning and setup, its response speed is amazing, and its replies are concise and impactful — the experience was truly mind-blowing!
Teacher Jiang zoomed way ahead again! His face was filled with a satisfied smile. Watching the "dancing WALL-E" race ahead was also quite amusing! Hahaha!
In the future, WALL-E will be shaped into different personalities and purposes, roaming various classrooms to answer and inspire ideas en masse. Just imagining it is so exciting, and that day will surely arrive soon! (Since I made that promise myself, I need to pick up the pace too — hoping to make it a wonderful Christmas gift!)
I also brought some smartphone macro lens cases to the event today. They were as popular as ever — the new sizes were all distributed quickly. I bought new cables and magnetic plates, and now it’s time to let Flux work from home again! This time, the goal is to finish printing an entire roll in one go!
Mass Production of High-Magnification Scales
At the end of April, while preparing small gifts for students and teachers attending a workshop in Nantou, I unexpectedly mastered the technique of using a hot glue gun to create bubble-free, transparent casts, significantly boosting production speed. During the recent collaboration, Teacher Jiang also gifted me some leftover materials, so I’ll be making another batch of small gifts soon!
The trick is to use small, high-transparency glue sticks. After heating, press the trigger only once, then push the back of the glue stick manually to slowly squeeze out the melted glue. This way, the trigger doesn't retract and introduce air bubbles. If bubbles start forming even with this method, it means the temperature is too high — cut the power and let it cool down a bit.
"Krypton Halogen Lamp" Lights Up!
To enhance the workshop experience, several new light sources were added — one of them was a bulb labeled "Krypton Lamp." Thanks to Science Squirtle Teacher Wei-Ming for patiently testing with me online at night. Despite limited equipment at home, we tried several methods but couldn't get the lamp to fully light up. Special thanks also to Teacher Li, who messaged later that night to offer help!
The next day after work, it was raining. Without an umbrella, I raced my bike through the rain to Teacher Li’s lab, where we quickly built a custom lamp holder. The main materials used were a power supply, dimmer, bulb, lamp holder, and a transparent acrylic plate.
Teacher Li’s lab was so well-equipped! I learned a lot of new techniques that night — I feel like my electrician skill points leveled up significantly!
Fiber Optic Module Capturing Microscope-Excited Fluorescence Spectra
Recently, I assembled an experimental setup that captures excitation fluorescence reactions: a dreamy combination of a fluorescence microscope (advanced epi-fluorescence coaxial module) and a fiber optic spectrometer! By taking long exposure shots in a darkroom, we were able to record the fluorescence spectra from brain slices — it was absolutely mind-blowing. This marks another major milestone for tabletop science, expanding the scope of what we can observe!