California-based LEGO artist Carl Merriam has built a functional microscope entirely out of LEGO bricks.
Inspired by the now discontinued LEGO X-Pod sets, Merriam realized that the pods resembled a very deep petri dish.
Merriam said, “I used a planetary gear system to allow both coarse and fine adjustment of the objective ‘lens’. A little more tinkering and I connected the focus to a magnifying glass and fiber optic light in the eyepiece, so adjusting the focus knobs would actually bring the writing on a LEGO stud in and out of focus.”
Merriam has been building with LEGO bricks for as long as he remembers and has been doing commissions since 2010.
Visit Merriam’s website and his Flickr page to see more of his builds.
[via Flickr and Leg Godt]