LINKS
The
nano-
Manipulator
Project

Reaching into Microspace
by Kevin O'Kelley

This past spring, some high school biology students got to examine viruses more closely than even scientists could just a few years ago.

Though the viruses were under a microscope 18 miles away, the students were able to push, probe, and "feel" them with the UNC-CH nanoManipulator, a virtual reality interface for atomic force microscopes.

Until 1992, even scientists couldn't see microscopic particles the size of viruses. Their best bet was atomic force microscopes, which presented only numerical data about the height, depth, and surface resistance.

Enter Warren Robinett, then in the Carolina computer science department, and Stan Williams, then at UCLA. They came up with the idea of the nanoManipulator, and Russell Taylor, then a doctoral student in computer science here, implemented the system.

The nanoManipulator saves scientists the work of interpreting numbers produced by an atomic force microscope and enables them to work with molecular materials by sight and touch. However, not every laboratory has the space or money for a nanoManipulator.

The interface consists of three computers that must be in the same room: one collects data from the microscope, another controls a probe, and a third generates graphics. The cost of the three computers: about $400,000.

But, says computer scientist Kevin Jeffay, "If you could send the information you need to make the nanoManipulator work over the Internet, you wouldn't have to have these three computers in the same room. It would allow the same quality of research with a much smaller budget. Laboratories and schools could share the costs of doing research with the nanoManipulator."

A team spearheaded by faculty from computer science, physics and astro-nomy, and education worked to make the nanoManipulator function over the Internet and to figure out how the tool could be used in public schools.

Taylor, Jeffay, and computer scientist Don Smith made the nanoManipulator's virtual reality interface work by remote control.

Then Richard Superfine, professor of physics, taught some students in an Orange High School biology class how to examine viruses using the nanoManipulator.

As they manipulated the viruses along a silicon surface, the students learned about the plasticity and solidity of viruses and how they adhere to surfaces: the basic physical realities of human sickness.

The students built clay models of viruses both before and after Superfine's class.

Gail Jones, professor of education, interviewed the students to see what they had learned from the virtual field trip. She says that the models the students made after the class demonstrated a better grasp of the viruses' three-dimensional structure.

"For these students, science changed from something that is static and in the past to something that is a dynamic and exciting process," she says.

Superfine also believes that the project was valuable for exposing students to relatively little-known disciplines.

"Not every student is in love with viruses or microscopy," Superfine says. "But we hope it will inspire students to become, if not biologists or physicists, maybe computer scientists."

The project to make the nano-Manipulator work by remote was supported by a Chancellor's Instructional Technology Grant