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We finally found a focusing lens after two tries. The first lens was made of plastic and made things blurrier. The second laser turned out to be a flashlight, so no luck there. The third try was on a laser pointer which was difficult to get out. I think managing getting the lens out of the laser pointer and finding it was big successes since my partner Mitchell spent all of class trying to get it out with a pair of scissors. There were a few scratches here and there but he managed to get lens out, which was pretty impressive. Finding out the lens actually worked relieved me because I was thinking of switching topics for genius hours and inventing something else and being almost halfway through the course was starting to worry me.

Our next step in this project is trying to find a more powerful magnifying glass and making it adaptable to most smartphones. We are thinking of trying to find a more powerful lens to use instead so we don’t have to put the camera up close to the item we are taking a picture of, that way the invention is more efficient. So far we have tried it on an IPhone, IPod, and a Samsung and they all require for the smartphone being up close to the thing we are taking a picture of, but the results are still breathtaking and it’s a noticeable if the picture was taken with the lens or without. Making it adaptable to different smartphones is another issue we are dealing with at the moment. Right now the prototype is the lens attached to a curl clip and with some duct tape to protect the smartphones from being scratched. I was thinking of maybe using magnets to attach the lens to the phone case, but we still haven’t decided how we can do that and where we can find magnets that small. Something else we were thinking of was making a PowerPoint presentation of how we did this project and the pictures we took.  


 
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Genius hour has opened up my creativity by making me think outside the box and think of an invention people can use every day. What I am doing for genius hour is a camera lens for smart phones that allows more magnification for the camera. I will be working on this project with my friend Mitchell. Even though there are products with the similar function, the purpose of this product is to innovate on that idea and make it more easy and comfortable to carry around. The only important material we will be using is a lens from a laser pointer that we’ll use as the magnifying lens for the smart phone camera. So far we haven’t made elaborated on the project itself. We have been looking at patents but haven’t really found a website showing us the patents. Hopefully we’ll get working on the project soon enough.

                We selected an invention for genius hour because we wanted to expand our imagination by thinking of product that will be essential for people. What I hope to gain from this experience is more inspiration for other projects I may do on my own time because for the past couple of years I haven’t been able to think outside of the box like back when I was younger. I plan on doing similar projects to this one, inventions that improve products. Starting this project has made me feel pretty excited to build an invention; it kind of brings the kid in me again.