Curiscope

June 10, 2020

40+ Resources For Bringing AR/VR To The Classroom

Do you work within or interested in the education industry and looking to bring VR/AR to the classroom? In this blog, you’ll find a collection of links to FREE apps plus much more!

Want to download the whole list as a downloadable spreadsheet? CLICK HERE and get the resource for FREE.

Alchemy VR

Alchemy VR has partnered with Expeditions to produce experiences narrated by naturalist David Attenborough. They are creating immersive educational experiences on an impressive scale. It is an experimental virtual reality studio based in London, United Kingdom.

4D Anatomy

The subscription-based app allows students and teachers to explore the human anatomy. 4D Interactive Anatomy puts you in control of navigating and learning from real photographic anatomy on any screen.

Curiscope was founded at the start of 2016 with the belief that they could use AR & VR tech to change how kids engage and interact with Science. Take your lessons to a new dimension with the Augmented Reality Virtuali-Tee. Learn about the human body…on a human body.

Schell Games

Schell Games is the largest full-service education and entertainment game development company in the United States. Schell Games counts some of the world’s most respected brands as clients, including The Walt Disney Company, Yale University, SeaWorld Parks, Lionel, The Fred Rogers Company and Microsoft Corporation.

Timelooper

Timelooper is a 360-degree virtual reality smartphone app that lets visitors re-live iconic moments from historical & cultural sites around the world. They are transforming the learning process from one that is inherently passive to active. They bring the classroom to life by empowering teachers to deliver highly interactive and historically and scientifically accurate content that will serve to inspire, emote, and inform students.

Unimersiv

Unimersiv is the largest platform for VR educational experiences. By downloading the app, you will have access to multiple experiences that will let you learn about history, space or human anatomy. Technology using virtual reality, however, has introduced new levels of experiential education. Virtual 3D worlds allow students and teachers to visit places otherwise impossible to visit without it. They can go to space, history places, deserts, or foreign countries without physically traveling there. Unimersiv’s VR app is available on the Samsung Gear VR and the Oculus Rift for now.

Quiver

Quiver Education content is designed around topics as diverse as biology, geometry, and the solar system. Quiver Education provides the same magical augmented reality colouring experience, but with a greater focus on educational content than the awesome Quiver App.

Wild Eyes

Wild Eyes use specially designed cameras to capture the natural world in 360-degrees. They are working with designers, educational organizations, and teachers to produce interactive lessons that allow the viewer to see a realistic depiction of the lessons they are learning including Biology, Physics, and Earth Sciences. They are using Virtual Reality to create an educational and immersive experience.

360cities

The world’s largest collection of stock 360° images and videos. The students/teachers can tour anyplace in the world with a 360-degree view for free. 360cities goal is to bring 360 VR photography to the mainstream and create new applications from this geographic data. We aim to cover hundreds of cities with tens of thousands of artistic, high-resolution, spherical panoramas.

CoSpaces Edu

CoSpaces Edu is an educational technology widely used in schools around the world and letting anyone easily create their own virtual content. With CoSpaces Edu, students can create virtually anything in the classroom!

Immersive VR Education

Immersive VR Education is a virtual/augmented reality company dedicated to transforming how educational content is delivered and consumed globally by providing educators and corporate trainers the tools they need to create their own content using virtual classrooms or virtual training environments.

Google Expeditions AR Pioneer Program

With the Expeditions app, through the use of VR and AR, teachers are no longer limited by the space of the classroom. VR lets you explore the world virtually while AR brings abstract concepts to life—allowing teachers to guide students through collections of 360° scenes and 3D objects, pointing out interesting sites and artifacts along the way. Introduce your students to a new way of learning with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

Nearpod

Nearpod strives to empower educators to create learning experiences that engage and inspire millions of students around the world. Nearpod is an all-in-one solution for the synchronized use of iPads in the classroom that makes lectures more engaging through interactive multimedia presentations.

ThingLink

ThingLink gives images a new role in online communication and learning. It allows teachers to create interactive images and videos. It is the easiest way to save and share notes and observations about real-world spaces, situations, and artifacts.

Boulevard (Previously WoofbertVR)

Boulevard creates immersive, user-controlled experiences and enriched art education content unlike any other in virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Boulevard Arts partners with the world’s leading museums and cultural sites to share their collections through virtual, augmented and mixed reality technology.

ISTE Librarian’s Network Webinar

Elissa Malespina, author of Augmented Reality in Education: Bringing Interactivity to Libraries and Classrooms has created a webinar about using AR and VR in the classroom. She talks about ways to incorporate AR into your schools.

zSpace

zSpace is an interactive, immersive virtual reality desktop platform. The system is focused on the learning market, specifically STEM education, medical instruction, corporate training, research, and design. zSpace applications engage students in standards-based learning experiences that align with the curriculum. Students construct knowledge and understanding of concepts across multiple curriculum areas with a strong focus on STEM subjects.

EON Reality (EON Reality Education)

EON Reality founded EON Reality Education, a non-profit focused on advancing the cause of Augmented and Virtual Reality (AVR) education and research. EON Reality Education will also guide and commission research and development projects with partner institutions to better understand the cognitive benefits of AVR.

Mattel View-Master Virtual Reality Viewer

Enter the world of virtual reality with the View-Master Virtual Reality Starter Pack. This kid-friendly device will surround you with stunning 360-degree environments so you feel as if you are really there. Immerse yourself in 360-degree interactive environments and explore these amazing virtual worlds.

ClassVR

ClassVR is a groundbreaking new technology designed to help raise engagement and increase knowledge retention for students of all ages. It is the world’s first affordable VR/AR solution designed to give schools everything they need to deliver an exciting, engaging and truly immersive learning experience, whilst ensuring it is fully managed and controlled within the classroom.

ENGAGE

ENGAGE is an advanced virtual reality training and education platform that makes it easy to collaborate, create and learn in virtual reality. The tools are very easy to use and require no technical expertise. The platform allows educators and corporate trainers to share their own content in a virtual setting, inspiring students whether in a classroom, lecture theatre, or operating theatre.

Titans of Space

Titans of Space is a densely educational guided tour of the Solar System, designed first for virtual reality. Multiple versions are available for mobile and PC platforms, for VR and otherwise.

VirtualSpeech VR

VirtualSpeech provides a training platform for people to practice soft skills in VR. Combining VR with e-learning or in-person training gives participants a chance to practice what they have learned in realistic environments, helping develop essential soft skills more effectively. Founded by Dom Barnard and Sophie Thompson in early 2016.

Veative

Veative is bringing VR in education that improves learning outcomes and increases engagement. Veative has launched its Awareness drive for Virtual Reality (VR) in Education. They develop immersive technology solutions that have shown an incredible ability to educate, train, and solve real-world problems.

Arch Virtual

Arch Virtual creates VR medical training experiences that help students practice surgical operations. They practice medical procedures in virtual reality environments before conducting them for real. They create real-time 3D environments for visualization, simulation and marketing using gaming and VR technologies like Unity3D and Oculus Rift.

Gamar

Gamar is an award-winning platform that enables anyone to easily map spaces and create augmented reality games or tours. Within the app, there are many kid-friendly activities available to keep the whole family entertained. Gamar allows museums and local attractions to easily create engaging tours with augmented reality to engage visitors.

InMind 2 VR (Cardboard)

InMind VR is an adventure game about a scientific journey inside the emotional chemistry of the human brain. It allows the students to experience the journey into the patient’s brains in search of the neurons that cause mental disorders. The game places emphasis on the chemistry behind human emotion, greatly inspired by the Pixar/Disney movie “Inside Out” and (more scientifically) Lövheim’s theory of emotions.

VR Space

VR Space is one of the VR apps available to learn about space. It is an immersive virtual reality tour of Sun Star and planet systems. Kids will learn all about the different planets in our Solar System and can guess some of space’s greatest facts.

Mission: ISS

Mission: ISS is to date the most detailed and elaborate space-oriented educational app for virtual reality. Take a trip into orbit and experience life onboard the International Space Station!

MEL Chemistry VR

One of the best educational VR apps on the subject of chemistry. MEL Chemistry VR lessons are aligned with the school chemistry curriculum, covering all of its main topics.

Universe Sandbox ²

Universe Sandbox ² is a physics-based space simulator that allows you to create, destroy, and interact on an unimaginable scale.

The VR Museum of Fine Art

A must-download VR education app. Explore the Second Floor of the Museum! Explore a virtual museum in room-scale VR: see famous sculptures in full, 1:1 scale and see famous paintings without the limitations of glass and security guards.

VictoryXR

VictoryXR is a world leader in virtual reality and augmented reality educational product development. VictoryXR gamified learning for middle school and high school science while keeping all units tied to the Next Gen Science Standards. In addition to gamification, there are 48 virtual field trips around the world.

AR Flashcards-Alphabet & More

Made for younger students, AR Flashcards make learning fun with the technology of Augmented Reality! With AR Flashcards, learning is fun! When you point your device at the printed flashcard a beautifully rendered 3D animal will pop up on the screen. Tap the animal to hear the letter and animal name.

Anatomyou VR

Anatomyou VR is an educational mobile application that presents human anatomy to the user from a different perspective. Anatomyou can be used in two different modes: Virtual Reality and Full Screen.

ImmerseMe

ImmerseMe aims to be the world’s best academic language tool. ImmerseMe uses virtual reality (VR) to simulate everyday conversations in foreign languages. You can choose from over 3,000 interactive scenarios across 9 languages: German, Spanish, French, English, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Greek and Indonesian.

TheBodyVR

The Body VR: Journey Inside a Cell is an award-winning educational virtual reality experience that takes the user inside a human cell.

FotonVR

FotonVR is the first virtual reality in education provider company, that provides complete solution of VR classroom set up, hardware supply, complete content for school syllabus and training to teacher. It has the largest library of science activities for school science subjects. It is an app specially designed for school to teach science subjects. It has more than 480 immersive VR activities that cover biology, physics, and chemistry topics.

Axon Park

Axon Park is an education technology company focused on democratizing access to education through XR and AI.

BRIOVR

Create an immersive learning environment for your classroom with virtual reality. BRIOVR is helping teachers bring VR into their classrooms by offering free sign-ups, storage and sharing to all students. BRIOVR has made it easy for users to build, create and share virtual reality content. Simply register with an email and your classroom has access to the latest VR technology. No coding or downloading required. Built for beginners.

Want to download the whole list as a downloadable spreadsheet? CLICK HERE and get the resource for FREE.

July 24, 2018

Virtuali-Tee Launches New Heart-Rate Tracking Feature

Way back in 2016, UK-based startup company Curiscope launched a Kickstarter campaign for a new teaching tool which incorporated augmented reality (AR) technology. Now the company has announced that a new feature is coming to the product – heart rate tracking.

As Curiscope points out, heart-rate sensors have become a standard feature in fitness wearables such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, and even some smartphones have the capability to use a special sensor to track heart rate. However, the Virtuali-Tee application doesn’t use a special sensor, instead relying only on a smartphone camera.

The Virtuali-Tee itself uses two elements to work, a combination of a specially printed t-shirt and a smartphone all. If someone uses the Curiscope app on a smarthone and points it at someone wearing the Virtuali-Tee, this then becomes an animated anatomical model that lets the user explore the human body.

The new feature lets the Virtuali-Tee track the wearer’s heart rate by simply using the smartphone camera, which lets the app synchronise the AR model with the pulse rate and show the heart beating in real time.

The technology involves a technique with the tongue-twisting name of Contact Photoplethysmography, which as Curiscope helpfully point out, is pronounced Photo-ple-fis-mogra-fi. The method works by measuring the amount of light absorbed by your body. More blood absorbs more light, so as your heart beats and your blood pressure rises, more light is absorbed.

Using a version of this technique, it is possible for the smartphone camera and Curiscope app to track the user’s heart rate in the same way, by having the use place a fingertip on the camera lens. The image is then samples and analysed until a regular pattern is established, and the animation can be started to tie it into the wearer’s heartbeat.

The Virtuali-Tee is available on Amazon and other selected retailers in the UK and US, and Cursiscope say the new feature will be launched on the app soon. For future coverage on new updates to AR and VR content, keep checking back with VRFocus.

February 12, 2018

Delve into the Deep When Operation Apex Arrives on Oculus Rift Next Week

Sharks don’t particularly have a good reputation – especially Great White sharks – mainly due to how they’re portrayed in the media. Aiming to challenge this misconception is Curiscope and Vive Studios with Operation Apex taking you beneath the waves to look for the largest Great White ever seen. Launched in December 2017 for HTC Vive, Curiscope will be releasing a new update later this month adding Oculus Rift support.

Operation Apex

In just over a weeks time Oculus Rift owners will be able to explore Curiscope’s underwater VR adventure with full support for Oculus Touch. Operation Apex’s story revolves around you playing a citizen scientist, who takes control of a research rig in order to learn about the current state of the oceans. As you do so you observe a massive Great White Shark, following the animal to learn more. Operation Apex isn’t just about sharks, with plenty of other sea creatures to find and learn about.

The 1.1 update doesn’t just add Oculus Rift support, the studio has added plenty of other additions. The next big feature is Free Roam, opening up the entire experience so you can wander at your leisure. Thus allowing you to return to previous levels whilst accumulating mimics. All explorable outside of the main narrative.

Comfort mode can now be toggled on and off, enabling the vignetting to be removed – handy if you’re recording a video. Smaller additions include Cloud saving on Steam, Chinese language support, and various graphical improvements and bug fixes.

Operation Apex will be one of the few Vive Studios titles to make it to Oculus Rift, the others being Arcade Saga, developed by 2 Bears Studio and Beamz Interactive’s Jam Studio VR. As Curiscope continues to expand its content library of VR titles VRFocus will keep you updated on the latest announcements.

December 11, 2017

‘Operation Apex’ lets you explore the deep, no scuba gear required

Do you like documentaries like ‘The Blue Planet?’ Curiscope’s ‘Operation Apex VR’ is as close as you’ll get to experiencing it in real life, and it hides its underlying message well.

The post ‘Operation Apex’ lets you explore the deep, no scuba gear required appeared first on Digital Trends.

December 11, 2017

Operation Apex Out Now On Steam

The depths of the Earth’s oceans are still mostly a mystery to us, and there have already been several virtual reality (VR) titles that explore the seas, varying in tone from serious to comedic. VR content creators Curiscope have now launched its own VR experience to take a closer look at the creatures of the ocean, Operation Apex.

Operation Apex expands on the work done in the first immersive work Curiscope produced, called Great White Sharks, which was a 360-degree video that aimed to show how important sharks are in the food chain, and also to correct the prejudices and misinformation that exist about the species. Operation Apex takes this idea several steps further by crafting a room-scale adventure.

The experience puts players in the role of an assistant to a marine scientist, taking a research vessel into the open sea to find the largest great white shark ever recorded. Players will be able to don diving gear and scan the ocean depths for marine life. Players will be able to view and interact with marine life that are rarely seen outside their native habitats. There are dangers in the deep ocean, however, so players will need to keep an eye out for predators and hazards.

Operation Apex features three complete underwater environments, and Curiscope have aimed to create an immersive environment that is as realistic as possible in an effort to help people understand and interact with the world in a new way, taking users on adventures to places they might otherwise never see.

The title is now available on Steam for HTC Vive, priced at £15.49(GBP).

Curiscope have also been involved with other VR and augmented reality (AR) projects, such as The Virtuali-Tee, an AR t-shirt that lets users see their internal organs. Curiscope are also working with publisher Dorling Kindersley to produce a book covering the history of VR technology that also includes a free Google Cardboard headset and five VR experiences.

VRFocus will bring you further news on Curiscope and Operation Apex as it becomes available.

November 20, 2017

Curiscope’s Operation Apex Set for Release Next Week

A few months ago, Curiscope – the company behind The Virtuali-Tee – announced a new project in conjunction with Vive Studios, a virtual reality (VR) adventure called Operation Apex that takes viewers beneath the waves. Now the studio has revealed Operation Apex will launch for HTC Vive on 30th November.

Expanding its first immersive piece, Great White Sharks, a 360-degree video that aimed to correct the misconception of sharks and show how crucial the species is in the global food web, Operation Apex aims to go that one step further by creating a full room-scale experience.

Operation Apex

“Our initial success encouraged us to craft a fully interactive room-scale adventure where sharks can detect your presence,” Curiscope explained in it’s blog. “Only a handful of people get to experience diving in the deep-sea and study marine life first hand. Operation Apex enables you to interact with sharks and many other elusive creatures that are rarely seen outside of their natural habitats. What’s more, the sharks in Operation Apex have the ability to react to your presence, and we can’t wait to reveal more about the algorithms that power them.”

Operation Apex’s story revolves around you playing a citizen scientist, who takes control of a research rig in order to learn about the current state of the oceans. As you do so you observe a massive Great White Shark, following the animal to learn more.

Alongside Operation Apex and The Virtuali-Tee, Curiscope has partnered with book publisher Dorling Kindersley on All About Virtual Reality, covering the history of the technology whilst including a free Cardboard headset and five experiences. Curiscope also collaborated with The Quantum Storey Company on a new VR book series called Operation YOU, starting with Morning Nightmare, depicting the pitfalls and pressures experienced boarding the school bus.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Curiscope, reporting back with the latest updates.

September 21, 2017

Head Beneath the Waves as shARk Surfaces from Curiscope

Curiscope, the developer behind virtual reality (VR) experience Great White Sharks has turned its attention to augmented reality (AR) and Apple’s ARKit, creating an app called shARk.

shARk allows users to feed and play with their very own pet leopard shark by dropping bait anywhere and everywhere. They can also record and share the best and weirdest places they find their sharks through the in-app video sharing.

shARkInTheOcean

The app is free to download from iTunes, designed for both iPhone and iPad, and features in-app purchases so users can choose to unlock the infamous Great White Shark for 79p/99 cents.

“With our VR Great White Shark experience in 2016 we wanted to create the number 1 mobile VR experience and, with close to 24m views, the reception was fantastic,” explained Ed Barton, CEO and co-founder of Curiscope. “It was an obvious move to do something similar with AR. ARKit is the technology that finally bridges the gap between high-end positional technology and the accessible mass-market with over 100m compatible devices. It’s a perfect match for Curiscope, enabling us to encourage curiosity, wonder and connection with the world that surrounds us.”

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Curiscope, reporting back with the latest updates.

July 28, 2017

Curiscope’s ‘Operation Apex’ great white shark experience is coming to HTC Vive

If you are looking to cure yourself of a lingering fear of the ocean and of one of its largest predators, Curiscope's Operation Apex will take you on a virtual reality tour of the ocean and a close look at great white sharks.

The post Curiscope’s ‘Operation Apex’ great white shark experience is coming to HTC Vive appeared first on Digital Trends.

March 8, 2017

Hazel Moore: Top 5 British VR/AR Companies

The UK, historically strong in the gaming and creative industries, has a leading role to play in the VR landscape in Europe, and has the largest number of up and coming VR companies of any European country, as featured in the recently launched European VR Landscape (available on www.thevrfund.com) published by the VR Fund and LucidWeb.

Here is my take on 5 of the most interesting companies in the UK in VR/AR:

Improbable:

In 2015 Andreessen Horowitz, an A-lister in Silicon Valley venture capital terms, invested $20mn in a little known UK firm called Improbable, only the second deal the firm had ever done in the UK. Improbable was developed by two computer scientists from Cambridge University, and has developed SpatialOS, which is a platform for third parties to build massive virtual and simulated worlds. The alpha version of the platform was launched in late 2016, and we expect a beta version in 2017.

Improbable

Ultrahaptics:

Ultrahaptics is a Bristol based company that is making waves, literally. It uses ultrasound technology to project sensations through the air, enabling the user to “feel” virtual objects without needing to wear or touch anything. The company is a spin out from Bristol University, and raised £10mn from Woodfood funds in 2015. Applications include things like changing the in car infotainment system with just a press of a virtual button in the air.

Ultrahaptics

Touch Surgery:

Touch Surgery, backed by Balderton Capital, was founded by surgeons to help provide surgical training via powerful software applications. With more than 200 apps and more than one million users worldwide, it provides medical students with a cost effective and safe practice environment BEFORE they start practising on people and wielding a sharp knife. In 2017 at CES Touch Surgery announced that it has made this content available for augmented reality platforms such as Hololens and Daqri.

Touch Surgery

Blippar:

Blippar is certainly the most high profile of the UK’s VR/AR start-ups. In 2016 it raised $54mn, reportedly at a valuation of $1.5bn, taking the total raised to almost $100mn. Founder Ambarish Mitra is on a high, having won the EY UK Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016. Recent signs are less positive, with the company cutting staff as losses widen, but the roster of clients who advertise through the platform includes some stellar global names.

Blippar-Header

Curiscope:

Curiscope has raised just $120k through crowdfunding, yet its VR film Great White Shark on YouTube has racked up an astonishing 16mn views. It has also developed the Virtuali-Tee, a £24 t-shirt available from the company’s website (currently out of stock), which, in combination with a smartphone, allows you to see “through” the t-shirt and view the wearer’s guts, heart, lungs and kidneys in graphic pulsating 3D. Biology lessons will never be the same again! Founder Ed Barton was named one of Forbes’s 30 under 30 in Europe for 2017.

Curiscope

There are undoubtedly many more great VR/AR companies in the UK, and the outlook is bright. The UK is fertile ground for large corporates looking to acquire talent in the VR/AR space. Facebook has made a number of acquisitions of UK companies, including Surreal Vision and Two Big Ears, while Snapchat snapped up Seene/Obvious Engineering, and Two Trees Photonics was sold to Daqri. Success breeds success, and Facebook has been expanding its UK team with further investment. In addition the pipeline of future talent is being nurtured more formally through two new accelerator programmes which have been launched in recent weeks to work with AR and VR start-ups:

* In February 2017 the Digital Catapult, which is funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency launched an accelerator programme called Augmentor for VR, AR and mixed reality start-ups in the UK, in partnership with Seedcamp (augmentor.co.uk). Successful companies will have access to an enviable list of mentors to provide advice and experience to help companies become successful.

* Meanwhile Barclays has teamed up with Creative England to create Barclays Eagle Flight Lab (https://labs.uk.barclays/flight), a 12 week accelerator programme in Brighton to work with start-ups in the creative industries, including VR and AR, which will run from March –May 2017.

December 28, 2016

EdTech AR Conference and Hackathon Taking Place at the Realities Centre Next Month

This month the Realities Centre opened its doors for the first time, hosting two MedTech events, one of which was a conference and the other a hackathon. Now the centre has revealed two new events taking place in January 2017, both focused on the EdTech industry.

As before there will be a conference and separate hackathon within a few days of each other, but these will be focused on augmented reality (AR). The two events are EdTech: Augmented Reality Conference and EdTech: Augmented Reality Hackathon, both being sponsored by AR company Blippar.

Education Blippar1

The EdTech: Augmented Reality Conference will be held on 19th January 2017, between 6pm – 9pm GMT. The evening event will feature talks and demos from Collum Eliott-Kelly of Blippar, Ed Barton – CEO of Curiscope, Joshua Redmond – Deloitte, Elena Sinel – Acorn Aspirations, along side Microsoft HoloLens and Meta 2. Early Bird tickets are available for £5 GBP rising to £10 for the standard ticket price.

While the EdTech: Augmented Reality Hackathon is a 24 hour event taking place from 21st – 22nd January 2017. Just as before teams will be given a theme on the day and tasked with developing a unique AR experience for the benefit of EdTech. The teams will be able to call on mentors from Blippar, Acorn Aspirations, the Realities Centre and more to help guide them throughout the hackathon. Early Bird tickets for the hackathon are already sold out, but general admission tickets are still available for £15.

Realities Centre will also be running another hackathon at the same time, but this will be a youth-orientated event run in partnership with Acorn Aspirations. On the same weekend 25 12-18 year old’s will participate in the hackathon getting the opportunity to develop an AR experience using the Blippar AR Builder tool.

For the latest events taking place at the Realities Centre, keep reading VRFocus.