Google Expeditions – Equipment

Google Cardboard

To run expeditions successfully each student needs a Google Cardboard. There are a number of options here – Google list a few on their Get Cardboard website – these are probably quite high quality – but on the whole seem very expensive (especially if your looking for a class set).

So far we have gone with cheaper “unofficial” versions from eBay – while I imagine the quality of these is lower, paying £1 to 2 per unit seems a lot more reasonable and I tend to worry a lot less if one gets broken. Usually these seem to ship from Hong Kong.

You could also go for the make it yourself route – I only tried it once and the results were not pretty – but if you love accurately cutting out cardboard shapes this might be for you:

However you are still going to need to buy the lenses, again eBay seems a good source for these.

Devices

With lots of people Beta testing expeditions I have been crowd sourcing a list of compatible devices – if you have tested a device feel free to add it to the sheet here. 

Currently the real issue is what devices to use:

• Students provide their own device – this would be the lowest cost option – although I doubt we will ever get a class where every student has something that runs the apps. Plus they need to be on the same WiFi network – I am probably lucky in that my school allows phones and lets them on the WiFi – but even with this I doubt we will get past 50% of a class.
• Get some devices for a class set – seems the more suitable solution (but expensive) – at the moment the issue is what device to get? Buying Android Phones seems a waste as you only really want the screen, a gyroscope (I think) and something that runs Android 4.4 or up (or so the Play Store says)..