Pop Up Thinglab 14: Childrens DIY VR Workshop

Virtual reality works best when it's surrounded

Pop Up Thinglab 14 was a Childrens DIY virtual reality workshop with the with the Code Club members of Croydon Central Library and a follow on from Pop Up Thinglab 12 Childrens DIY VR Workshop and Pop Up Thinglab 5: Children's Storytelling And Virtual Reality.

Pop Up Thinglab 14 is the second in an inspireNshare series of MAKE workshops intended to develop understanding by making things. Inspired by maker culture the emphasis is on DIY, informal, social, peer and shared learning motivated by fun, experimentation and self-fulfilment.

In the previous Childrens DIY VR workshop we made our own VR viewers - in this one we made our own DIY VR media!

I wanted to emphasise the difference between flat and linear traditional media and 360 non-linear virtual reality so I started the session with a traditional flat and linear "classroom" type arrangement with students arranged in rows and me "the teacher" at the front.

"The children's definition of virtual reality is the best I have come across"

This week we had a new code club member along with his mum so I asked the children to describe and explain what we had been doing and what virtual reality is. The children defined virtual reality as "a pair of goggles that projects into your eyes as if you are there". The children's definition of virtual reality is the best I have come across - its simple, about experience rather than technology and it's easily understood by children and adults alike. It's a useful definition and the one I use all the time now for both adults and children.

 "in virtual reality you can look around as if you are there"

So .. now I say 

"if you want to understand it yourself have a six year old explain it to you"

We started to talk about the difference between "normal" films and photos and virtual reality films and photos ... the children had to think quite a bit about this until one of the children nailed it by saying - "in virtual reality you can look around".  Albert Einstein  once said "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself" ... I say .. "if you want to understand it yourself have a six year old explain it to you".  Children have valuable, fresh and remarkable points of view and insights into things - this is one reason why I am very interested in peer and flip learning - where children teach adults and students teach teachers - see our inspireNshare projects in education for example. 

We spoke some more about the differences between "flat" media and immersive 360\VR media. I mentioned how one director has described making a flat video as being like hunting - where you are behind the camera and where the camera is like a gun that you look through and "shoot" things. The same director describes how making VR is like making a trap - that with VR everything is in shot so you have to take the whole environment into consideration. VR works best when the camera is surrounded so we moved our chairs into a circle and surrounded the VR camera.

A circle is a better arrangement to talk about and make virtual reality but I also wanted to explore the difference between rows and circles in terms of pedagogy. 

"the advantages of losing control and unpresentating in education"

Way back in March 2010 I attended Educamp London - an education un-conference that made quite an impression on me (see "The Meaning of London Educamp One").  Some of the methods used at the Educamp London Unconference are very relevant to the type of unstructured and non-linear education as art approach necessary for Pop Up Thinglab to happen. Diane Brewster's unstructured non-linear unpresentation about Sussex university's "Creativity Zone" using conversation and objects had stayed with me all these years as did the session by Lucy Renton from Kingston university on "losing control" where we took time to form a proper circle of chairs so that everyone was equal around a circle. Lucy's session was so captivating that I was late for my session on "cultural identity" - the participants started without me and I joined them as a participant ... an unintentional but super practical example of the advantages of losing control and unpresentating in education!

Unprepared, Unpresented and uncontrolled - I broke all the rules of education and it was good

I deliberately unprepared for today's session - I didn't want it to be like school and formal education - I wanted to encourage spontaneity, creativity and fresh ideas.

We started MAKE:VR with 360\VR stills. We didn't have our VR viewers with us but I remember one of the children in Pop Up Thinglab 5 getting excited and running around with his hands as a VR viewer - I thought this might work well with the children so suggested we make funny faces and face masks with our hands.

I passed the camera remote control to the children and childhood imagination and creativity came into play as they explored the 360 point of view of a VR camera as virtual reality actors and producers at the same time.

Exploring a 360 point of view

We moved on to making VR video - I was deliberately unprepared so asked for ideas for a video that would demonstrate the 360 point of view of a virtual reality camera. Code club volunteer Saleha Salahudin suggested we try a Mexican wave around the camera and we shot several versions of a 360 Mexican wave. 

A 360 Mexican Wave

We finished MAKE:VR watching the VR media we had made - watching ourselves in-situ in virtual reality. The VR selfie is the strangest selfie yet and in-situ it often confuses adults - many reach out to touch things and can't resist moving around -  they are where they are but its in virtual reality - it's really weird. Unlike adults the MAKE:VR children weren't confused at all and treated their in-situ VR selfies like any other selfie - they were already accustomed to virtual reality and took it in their stride as just another bit of technology in their daily lives.

libraries have come to the rescue of the general public by providing open access to information and information technology. 

Some of the parents asked about VR cameras but expressed concerns about the cost of buying one themselves. Over the years we have had the same concern about access to books, videos, computers and the internet and libraries have come to the rescue of the general public by providing open access to information and information technology. 

libraries are vital in providing access to information and information technologies for the general public in the information age.

Today is the most active and exciting time I have known in digital technology and the signs are that the rate of development is only going to become faster. For better or for worse this is just the start of the digital revolution and the information age and open public learning venues like libraries are vital in providing access to information and information technologies for the general public in the information age.  

For more images and videos of Pop Up Thinglab 14 visit:
Thinglab 14 videos (Youtube playlist)
Thinglab 14 images (Flickr album)

To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspireNshare.com



To find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab visit http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

Pop Up Thinglab 13: Welcome To the Pleasure Dome!

Pop Up Thinglab .. "welcome to the pleasure dome"

Pop Up Thinglab 13 was an open and public virtual reality and 3D printing workshop for anyone held in the entrance pavilion of Thornton Heath Library on a rolling program for people to come and go as they pleased over three hours.

Pop Up Thinglab a "pleasure dome"

The Thornton Heath Library entrance pavilion is a wonderful light, airy and informal space - "its function makes it an object of pleasure" and for Pop Up Thinglab a "pleasure dome" as people couldn't get enough virtual reality and 3D printing.

Children used Google Cardboard VR viewers to watch "Invasion", "Take flight", "The Evolution of Vrse" and to ride our VR and Cosmic roller coasters.

Adults used Samsung Gear VR to watch "Introduction to Virtual Reality" and to visit "Jurassic World", the Cirque Du Soleil, the Tomb of Tutankhamun and to free dive with dolphins and Whales.

The best way to understand reality and virtual reality is to be part of it so we used a VR camera to put ourselves in the picture by recording ad-hoc 360/VR images and videos with ourselves and playing them back "in-situ" .... where the VR was made and with us in it! 

"In-situ virtual reality is strangely compelling and messes with our senses" 

We are familiar with seeing ourselves in two dimensions on flat media such as photos and videos but seeing ourselves in virtual reality is something new - the VR selfie is the strangest selfie yet. In-situ virtual reality is strangely compelling and messes with our senses as we move from the familiar two dimensional passive voyeurism of flat media perspectives to the active immersive first person perspective of virtual reality.  The best lie is close to the truth - In-situ VR is close to reality and gets the closest I've seen yet to confusing people that what they are seeing is real - people seem spell-bound looking around, many start reaching out to touch things and many can't resist moving around.

We had conversations about trends in digital technology ... about "Moore's law", the speed of change and how exponential growth has reduced costs, increased availability and led to the "cambrian explosion" of digital technology we see now with smartphones, wearables, 3D printing, virtual reality, robotics and AI.

"Libraries are ideal venues for 21st century learning"

Today is the most active and exciting time I have known in digital technology and the signs are that the rate of development is only going to become faster - for better or for worse this is just the start of the digital revolution and the information age. Many of the adults expressed concerns about keeping up with technology and how they can do this - life-long, life-wide learning is where libraries, adult and community education come in. Libraries are especially useful as gateways to learning - they are open public places with no entry level criteria for learning. Libraries are ideal venues for 21st century learning - anyone can come along to learn what they like without prejudice, without judgement and in their own way.

"Diversity provides great opportunities for diverse learning"

A public library offers life-long life-wide learning and our pop up Thinglab had life-long life-wide learners of all ages, abilities and races all together at the same time. Diversity provides great opportunities for diverse learning, peer learning and flip learning. We had conversations about the trends in and future of 3D printing and virtual reality. We talked about the difference between 360-VR and 3D-VR and about the problems of 3D mapping the physical environment. One of the visitors spoke about a room based VR system he came across that fools your senses to make it seem that you are in a bigger physical space by adjusting perception and fooling your senses to think you are walking in a straight line when in fact you are walking in a circle. 

Peer and Flip learning with adults learning from kids

A wonderful example of peer and flip learning was a young boy who explained and talked about virtual reality and 3D printing with adults and helped them with the VR viewers and the content.

 A traditional toy made with new new technology

As a reward for his help with Thinglab our peer young teacher chose to take home the 3D printed spinning top I had in our display collection of 3D printed objects. Children are always fascinated by the 3D printed spinning top - a traditional toy made with new new technology. When they ask what it is they are fascinated when I explain that it was the type of thing children might get as a christmas present 100 years ago. This gets me thinking that themed workshops might be a good way to introduce and demonstrate 3D printing - workshop themes historical periods and specific subjects as well as practical workshops on toy making and jewellery making for example.

Its useful to have a range of hardware available so that people get to appreciate the continuum of VR experience from the open, accessible and very cheap DIY and ready made Google Cardboard ecosystem through to the more expensive, better quality but proprietary Samsung Gear VR. People normally prefer the Samsung Gear VR but one lady found it made her eyes ache and preferred Google cardboard which she got on with just fine - spending time visiting the Tomb of Tutankhamun and free diving with dolphins and Whales. 

Google cardboard viewers are a great first step into virtual reality - they are cheap, easy to use and have a lot of free and open VR content available, not least the thousands of user generated VR videos available on Youtube. Google cardboard is less immersive than higher end products and not having a head strap is an advantage -  it helps keep you grounded in the real world and means you can control your experience better by letting you come in and out of virtual reality a lot quicker and easier. Not having a head strap also makes Google cardboard viewers a lot easier to pass around and share when you are in a group.

For more images and videos of Pop Up Thinglab 13 visit:
Thinglab 13 videos (Youtube playlist)
Thinglab 13 images (Flickr album)

To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspireNshare.com


To find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab visit http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

Pop Up Thinglab 12 Childrens DIY VR Workshop

Childrens DIY virtual reality workshop

Pop Up Thinglab 12 was a Childrens DIY virtual reality workshop with the with the Code Club members of Croydon Central Library and a follow on from Pop Up Thinglab 5: Children's Storytelling And Virtual Reality.

"The best way to understand reality and virtual reality is not just to experience it but to make it"

Pop Up Thinglab 12 is the first in an inspireNshare series of MAKE workshops intended to develop understanding by making things. Inspired by maker culture the emphasis is on DIY, informal, social, peer and shared learning motivated by fun, experimentation and self-fulfilment.

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself" ~ Albert Einstein

If a child can do it an adult should be able to!

The intention for this Thinglab was to engage the curiosity and creativity of children to develop practical understanding to de-mystify new technology.

Named for its fold-out cardboard viewer Google Cardboard is intended as a low-cost system to encourage interest and development in virtual reality. Google Cardboard is great low cost way to get into VR - you can use your smartphone with a VR Viewer that you can make yourself from low cost parts, a DIY kit or buy ready made.

Making a cardboard viewer from scratch is quite feasible but you have to be quite practical and patient and have a couple of hours to layout the template and cut the cardboard. For this first childrens DIY VR workshop we used a DIY kit - we save the time and practical difficulties of cutting the cardboard from the template but get the experience of assembling our own low cost VR viewer.


When given the chance children can have amazing conversations about the world they live in and the future. 

We gathered around a table and talked about virtual reality - I was amazed at how informed our conversation was. We talked about the range of VR equipment available and the differences between them - from smartphone based systems like Google cardboard and viewers like cardboard viewers like I am cardboard and View-Master, through Samsung Gear VR to the PC bound room based systems of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive and the soon to be released Sony Playstation VR. Oculus and Facebook have done such a good job of publicising Rift - when asked about virtual reality its the one thing that most people (even young children) mention. Its a pity that the reality of the Rift hasn't yet lived up to its virtual reality!

We spoke about virtual reality and gaming - about Vive and the part of Valve  with its long history of game development and game distribution and community platform Steam. The code club children really seemed to understand the potential of VR and gaming when we spoke about Playstation VR - they imagined what it would be like to play some of the games they knew about in virtual reality. 

I spoke about my experience using Tiltbrush (a VR painting application) with the HTC Vive and how motion controllers and motion sensors improves the experience of virtual reality and what you can do with it. I spoke about how simply adding headphones increases the experience of immersion and we talked about how adding more senses and interfaces would make virtual reality seem more like reality. I told them about the KOR-FX haptic feedback vest I had seen on my visit to Barking Digilab and how this would let you "feel your game" and what it might be like to get shot in virtual reality and how this might affect how you play the game. One of the code club children talked about how the ultimate in virtual reality would be connecting directly into our nervous system like the Matrix and we spoke about how in the future it might become difficult to tell the difference between reality and virtual reality. We finished our conversation talking about how some people get addicted to games and how VR games might affect this - about how some people might end up like in the Matrix - with drip feeding because they don't want to come out of the virtual reality!

I think we could have talked for the whole session but this was a Thinglab rather than a Thinklab and it was time to get practical. 

I showed the children what the finished DIY Cardboard viewer would look like and gave a quick demonstration of how to put it together. As soon as I handed the out the kits the children opened them up and just got started straight away. There are no step by step instructions in the kit and I wanted to see how far the children could get on their own - working out the assembly themselves after a quick demonstration and seeing what the end result looked like. Some of the children managed to make their VR viewer with just a few bits of advice from me .. I thought this was pretty amazing. Others needed more help so I gave them guidance and support as needed - being careful to let everyone do as much of the assembly themselves as they could.

As each person completed their VR viewer they had a chance to try it out either with my phone or with their own. I always think that personal investment in something makes it more meaningful and after concentrating to make their VR viewers the children's excitement and enthusiasm at this stage was amazing. Some asked to watch VR media we had seen in Pop Up Thinglab 5: Children's Storytelling And Virtual Reality while others searched Youtube #360 for VR videos of things they were interested in.

While the children mostly worked on making their VR viewers by themselves when it came to using them there was a lot of co-operation and discussion - the children were showing each other what they were looking at and what they had found to watch.

In this first Childrens DIY VR workshop we made our own VR viewers - in the next one we will make our own DIY VR media!

For flat and 360\VR images of Pop Up Thinglab 12 visit our MAKE:VR 1 Flickr album

To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspireNshare.com

To find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab visit http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

Pop Up Thinglab 11: VR & 3D Printing at Northolt library

Virtual reality & 3D Printing  at Northolt  library

Pop Up Thinglab 11 was an open and public virtual reality and 3D printing workshop for anyone held in the open area of Northholt Library on a rolling program for people to come and go as they pleased over three hours.

Outside the box of formal education people still have a hunger for learning and a public library provides life-long, life-wide access to learning without examination, selection or entry requirements. It is such a pleasure to teach mixed learners together informally and it is a real joy to have families come along and learn together. Diverse and Inter-generational experience gives a dynamic to learning that just doesn't exist in the selective homogeneity of formal education.

3D Printing

At the beginning of the session we set up the 3D printer with blue PLA and loaded the 3mm Spanner from Thingiverse to test things out - its small and simple and if this prints OK then the build plate should be level enough and we should have enough confidence that more ambitious objects should print OK. The Flashforge Finder 3D printer we used is a popular model for schools and to demonstrate how friendly this printer is I asked a little girl who came along at the beginning of the session to take out the build plate and remove the little spanner.

3D printing is still a niche thing with innovator, early adopter "geek", techie, makers and professionals - it has yet to "cross the chasm" to the mainstream majority of home users - the majority of whom have heard little or nothing about them and have never seen one in use. We had a range of PLA filaments reels and 3D printed objects for people handle and ask about. We spoke about the next generation of consumer 3D printers that promise to be both easier to use and cheaper such as the XYZ Da Vinci Junior and the (hopefully) soon to be released Mattel Thingmaker - both of which are aimed at children but also "perfect for first time 3D designers and aspiring inventors" of any age! Someone talked about the stories they had come across of 3D printers being used to print guns and we spoke about the potential of technology for both good and bad ... how a pencil can write love letters or hate mail and in the case of 3D printers how they can make toys, tools and medical parts to save lives as well as weapons.

Children are always fascinated by the 3D printed spinning top I have in the collection of 3D printed objects - a traditional toy made with new new technology. When they ask what it is they are fascinated when I explain that it was the type of thing children might get as a christmas present 100 years ago. I printed out and gave away a couple of the spinning tops - this gets me thinking about how 3D printing can make history tangible and bring it to life by recreating objects from the past. I am thinking about a theme for a future Thinglab along the lines of - "storytelling history with 3D printing and objects from the past".

3D printing is part of what I call the "new dimensions" of technology ... technology that goes beyond flat 2 dimensional IT and media that we are all familiar with. the rise of 3D printing is coincidental with the rise of virtual reality and augmented reality and the links between the two are something I am very interested in exploring. The first link between 3D printing and virtual reality I can remember is back in 2014 when Australian Band 'Cut Copy' Created a 3D Printed Music Video. The potential to make tangible the virtual is intriguing so I'm not  surprised we often get talking about Pokemon Go in Thinglabs and people ask about 3D printing Pokemon - the teenager with the blue headscarf in the cover photo for this blog post is holding up a little 3D printed Pikachu. "New dimensions" with technology features heavily in Thinglabs and we often get talking about 3D printing virtual reality viewers - you can find find lots of 3D printed virtual reality viewers and accessories in the Thingiverse VR/AR collection 

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality certainly has a wow factor and I haven't come across anyone yet who hasn't been amazed once they have given it a go. Accessing good virtual reality content is important - especially for first time VR trippers so I am curating useful VR content for the Virtual Reality Travel agency - see our curated free VR trips for Samsung Gear and free VR trips for Cardboard VR . Its also useful to have a range of hardware available so that people get to appreciate the continuum of VR experience from the open, accessible and very cheap DIY and ready made Google Cardboard ecosystem through to the more expensive, better quality but proprietary Samsung Gear VR. People always appreciate the comfort and quality of the Samsung VR experience but the accessibility of Google Cardboard VR really brings VR home when people learn how quick and easy it is to access VR on their own phones with Youtube #360 videos. 

The best way to understand reality and virtual reality is not just to experience it but to make it and InspireNshare Thinglabs make virtual reality real by making virtual reality. We have recorded some VR media in each of our more recent Thinglabs - short VR videos on the InspireNshare DIY #360 VR videos Youtube playlist and stills on the InspireNshare DIY #360 VR stills Flickr album 

We spoke about the differences between flat and linear 2D media and immersive 360\VR media. One director has described making a flat video as being like hunting and making a VR video as being like laying a trap. With VR everything is in shot so you have to take the whole environment into consideration - VR works best when you are surrounded. I suggested we make a short VR video clip ... we surrounded the VR camera and recorded our first improvised and ad-hoc VR video clip "Make some noise in the library"  - LOL .... I must remember everything is in shot ... including the "director" :)

For more images and videos of Pop Up Thinglab 11 visit:
Thinglab 11 videos (Youtube playlist)
Thinglab 11 images (Flickr album)

To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspireNshare.com

To find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab visit http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

Pop Up Thinglab 10: VR At Stanmore Library

Relaxing With Virtual Reality in Stanmore Library

Pop Up Thinglab 10 was an open and public virtual reality workshop for anyone held in the reception of Stanmore Library.

We had a group of comfortable armchairs around a coffee table - people relaxed, took their time in conversation and asked for informative and relaxing virtual reality experiences. Did the physical environment influence what people wanted in their virtual environment?

One lady sat down and told me she had a stressful day and could I find something to relax her ... we searched Youtube #360, she put on a Cardboard VR viewer and her headphones for better immersion and went swimming with dolphins -  Swimming with Wild Dolphins in the Ocean and Dolphin encounter on the Great Barrier Reef. 

Curious about what was going on other people joined what for a while became "virtual reality relaxation therapy" in the local library - watching 360/VR videos from the Youtube #360 playlist "Moment of Zen", visiting exotic beaches such as Lanikai Beach Hawaii, a Maldives Beach & Resort and scuba diving off Green Island Taiwan.

While some visitors wanted "virtual reality relaxation therapy" others wanted "virtual reality education" and asked for the informative documentaries from With.in and NYTVR such as "A History of Cuban Dance", "Clouds over Sidra", "The Displaced" and "Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart" 

While some visitors wanted virtual reality education or relaxation therapy others wanted adventure and exhilarating entertainment and for these we arranged trips to rollercoasters, the Eiger north face, ski jumping, wingsuit flying, tightrope walking and spacewalking

As usual children have no problem with new technology such as virtual reality ... they are growing up and finding out new things all the time anyway. Natural curiosity and desire for learning makes children enthusiastic and excited to use new technology but at the same time they also just seem to take new technology their stride.

This was the third time out with our 360\VR camera and I only took one "flat" image ... everything else I recorded was either a 360\VR image or video -  the "flat image" used at the top of this blog post is in fact a screenshot of a 360\VR image I uploaded to Flickr here! I'm thinking of 360\VR as the natural next stage in photography and media - recording and playing back the world with increasing realism ... moving from mono to colour, to video, to digital and now to digital first person perspective played back "as if you were there". All these forms of imagery will co-exist - there are great reasons to use flat mono photography but also great reasons to use 360\VR media. I'm thinking of 360\VR as the next stage of media but not the final stage ... we are only at the very start of 360\VR media development and there are greater levels of immersion to come but I think there are many more "evolutionary" steps in recording the world yet to come ... more on this in future blog posts.

Virtual reality has such interesting potential to introduce us to new experiences that might otherwise be impossible or at least very difficult. 

With virtual reality Pop Up Thinglab brings education, entertainment and even therapy.

With virtual reality Pop Up Thinglab brings you impossible experiences.



For more images and videos of Pop Up Thinglab 10 visit:

Thinglab 10 360/VR video playlist
Thinglab 10 360/VR images

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Find out more about inspireNshare at http://inspirenshare.com

Find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab at http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

Find out more about Virtual Reality at http://inspirenshare.com/vr

Pop Up Thinglab 9: VR at Hounslow Library

"Summer reads" ... Virtual reality in Hounslow Library 

Pop Up Thinglab 9 was an open and public virtual reality workshop for anyone held in the reception of Hounslow Library.

Life-long life-wide diverse open learning
In a public library there are no minimum entry level criteria, selection tests or divisions based on age, gender or ability etc - everyone is welcome to come and learn and people's natural learning curiosity brought them over to see what I was doing as soon as I arrived and "we hit the ground running"! 

A public library provides life-long life-wide learning and our pop up Thinglab had life-long life-wide learners of all ages, abilities and races all together at the same time. The selective homogeneity used by the formal education system to batch process and mass educate leads to a certain blandness. It is such a pleasure to teach mixed learners together informally - learner diversity lends itself to learning diversity with a good range of views and ideas brought in and taken out. The dynamics in learner diversity leads to natural peer teaching and learning - its such a pleasure to see 8 year olds explain virtual reality to 68 year olds and for 68 year olds to describe their experience of 3D images with View-Masters when they were young. Inter-generational experience interest is something I have noted before with the diverse learners in Thinglab - children have a real interest in the stories older people tell about the past ... sometimes I think of it like meeting a time traveller who can tell you what it used to be like - it really does bring history to life when you can talk with someone who has lived it.

Diverse Responses to VR
With such diverse groups of learners in Thinglab its not surprising that we see such diverse responses to virtual reality. Some people put on a VR viewer and hardly move  they seem cautious and I have to encourage them to look around - up, down, left, right and "behind you" :) Other people put on the VR viewer are animated straight away looking around, gasping, moving their hands and even moving around. I've noticed that some young children can't help but try to walk about as if completely immersed in an imaginary world although when I ask them about this they are quite cleat about the difference between reality and virtual reality ... just as they are quite clear about reality and and what they imagine in make-believe play. One man used the VR viewer as if he were watching a flat screen - he didn't look around at all .... until he plugged his headphones in. The more immersive the virtual reality the better the experience is  - headphones and viewer quality make a big difference to the experience. Motion controllers, haptic feedback, body tracking and the inclusion of more senses will in the future make virtual reality experiences very "interesting" .. potentially blurring the lines between reality and virtual reality and raising no end of philosophical and practical questions, opportunities and concerns.

We use a range of VR headsets for people to experience and compare - Samsung Gear VR for good quality VR and a range of Google Cardboard VR viewers for experience of cheaper and open VR. Cardboard VR generated a lot of interest - especially when people used their own phones with the cardboard viewers to search for and view 360\VR videos on Youtube - using your own familiar tools and interests really helps bring a connection to learning something new and it was a real pleasure to hear people talk about how they will show their family and friends how to access virtual reality with their own phones. It was also a real pleasure to see and hear people swap the Youtube VR discoveries they had made.

Technology developments have made the creation and sharing of DIY virtual reality increasingly accessible and we bring experience of creating virtual reality to Thinglab with a Samsung Gear 360 camera. We are experimenting and learning how to make 360/VR media in thinglab with our learners as we go along - Pop Up Thinglab 9 was the second outing for our VR camera ... you can see our little 360 media experiments on the links below

360 Images: Hounslow Library 
360 Images: Hounslow Arts Centre
360 Videos: Pop Up Thinglab 9: 360\VR Experiments

The smartphone has largely replaced the idea of a separate camera for most people but 360\VR media looks set to breath new life into the separate digital camera market place. With "flat" media the camera operator is behind the lens pointing at something but with 360 media everything is in shot and because of this a standalone VR camera really makes sense. Samsung's mobile VR ecosystem works really well with the smartphone as the hub for its VR camera and VR viewer. Remotely controlling the VR camera over direct wifi with your smartphone is a real pleasure and works really welI. Creating and sharing 360\VR media will be an increasing feature of our future Thinglabs and I will be writing a lot more on this topic in the future.

For more images and videos of Pop Up Thinglab 9 visit:
Thinglab 9 Image Collection 
Thinglab 9 Video Playlist

Find out more about inspireNshare at http://inspirenshare.com

Find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab at http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

Find out more about Virtual Reality at http://inspirenshare.com/vr