Recap: Open Science Shop & OpenFlexure Microscope Working Group Meeting (November 2024)

Recapped by Jo Long for the Open Science Shop Newsletter

Each month, we share a summary of our most recent Open Science Shop & OpenFlexure Microscope Working Group (OSS-OFM WG) meeting as we continue to work together to enable distributed manufacturing of the OpenFlexure Microscope (OFM) on a global scale.

The Open Science Shop convenes these working group meetings on a monthly basis. These monthly meetings serve as an opportunity to share updates from the various task forces and brainstorm actions the group can take next.

Update on OpenFlexure Microscope vendors

Since the last meeting we have on-boarded AfricaOSH as a new OpenFlexure Microscope vendor in Ghana, bringing the total number of OpenFlexure Microscope vendors to 11. It was noted that there are customers in regions where we do not have any vendors and at least one has reached out to find a local seller. It will be an ongoing effort to identify vendors in under-represented locations. The group discussed a working group reboot/outreach to the wider OSS community to engage more members, especially now that sales are well underway.

Next Steps: Selling assembled microscopes

Two vendors reported they have have received requests for assembled & tested microscopes, which again raised the topic of compliance barriers to selling assembled microscopes vs. kits. The topic of selling assembled and tested microscopes was discussed:

• Impact: Broaden the market to include those customers that need an assembled and tested OpenFlexure Microscope. Currently only kits are available which excludes some users with time/resources constraints
• Barrier: The OFM includes a Raspberry Pi - an intentional radiator - which itself has been FCC and CE certified. However, once it is assembled into an instrument with other electronics (e.g. Sangaboard) then vendors will be required to provide a Certificate of Compliance indicating that the microscope has passed additional CE and FCC compliance tests (e.g. non-intentional radiator testing)
• Cost: Compliance testing is estimated at approximately £12-15K (GBP) which would be a one-time cost. Once testing is successfully completed by the OFM team, the results could be shared for vendors to use in preparing their own Certificate of Compliance documentation
• Funding: Potential academic funding sources might be able to cover costs but they would likely require matching or contributing funds e.g. a consortium of vendors could chip in. Vendors could fund this via microscope pre-order sales for example. Other ideas such as crowdfunding were discussed
• Next steps: The group thought this would be a good area to focus efforts and will continue discussing best approaches for fundraising at the next meeting

Next Project(s) for Open Science Shop

With the progress of the OFM vendor page and next steps discussed, the topic of other future open science hardware projects was raised. Open Science Shop has a project proposal form that anyone can fill in to submit a project to the group. This is also linked at the end of every newsletter (see footer below). Currently we have had a few responses, which the group can follow-up with.

Agenda for upcoming meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for Monday December 16th at 4 pm UTC. Below are some of the items for the next meeting:

• Discuss ways to re-engage the 100+ members of the Open Science Shop community especially now that the vendors page is up
• Discuss crowdfunding/pre-orders to fund microscope compliance testing
• Discuss other fundraising priorities
• Update on vendor page launch/press release
• Update on OHW template agreement
• Upcoming EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR)
• Handling OSS project pitches for 2025

New members are always welcome to join the OSS-OFM working group! Please fill out the form linked below for the meeting link or email admin@openscienceshop.com.