igot-U Tracker
It’s not often I write about bits of kit but I’ve been having a bit of fun with this wee gem for a few days now. The i-gotU tracker has been around for a little while and has previously featured on MerlinJohn but we got our grubby mitts on one last week.
Briefly, it’s a GPS tracker that is about the size of a memory stick that logs your position at roughly 6 second intervals while it’s running. Get it back to a laptop, plug in the USB cable and with a few clicks it has mapped your route on a Google Maps background.
The really clever bit happens when you take a camera with you. As long as the clock in the camera is set correctly you can upload the pics to the @trip software at the same time as the GPS data and it will add the pics to your route. Text can be added later.
You can make your trips available online or save them in formats that can be viewed on Google Earth. Have a look at the @Trip site for more examples to download.
Shire Brook Valley
Have a look at this example I did last week. There’s a really good nature reserve near us that we have used for projects before (good for industrial heritage, geography, science) and I strapped my boots on, took our trusty EOS450D and pretended I knew what I was doing. Felt like a proper geographer for the first time since uni!
You can easily see applications for this. For starters…
- Field Trips – either you make one before you go to familiarise students with a location/topic or get them to make one after they’ve been.
- Science – Mapping specimens in an ecosystem (e.g. change in plant species on coasts)
- Local history projects
- Maths – looking at speed, time and distance relationships. (Graphs are available in the @trip software although I don’t think you can export data).
- PE - tracking a cross-country runner or cyclist, comapring the difficulty of routes (it will also show elevation).
- Art - create a photography walk for an art project.
I had one or two little glitches running the software and lost data from one test trip completely but apart from that it’s a dream to use. I like the idea of any kit where the interface is 2 flashing lights and a dirty great button. After our previous nightmares with GPS it was a relief.
The ability to export to a Google Eart KMZ also means that you can combine it with GE’s audio tour function opening up a whole new avenue that I haven’t explored yet.
Have you used the igot-U? Share your experiences, good or bad…
5 Comments until now
Wow this looks great. Presumably you could use it to create mediascapes too. I want one!
It is cool, isn’t it! If you’d like to borrow it, let me know, Sarah.
For media you’re restricted to images and text only, no sound, slideshows or video, unfortunately. If you upload it into Google Earth you can use the audio tour function in the latest version but that’s starting to get a bit fiddly.
I like it….I can see virtual fieldwork developing fast!
[...] – we took along a wee GPS tracker mentioned previously so we could log the photos in Google Maps and upload to the @Trip server. Click here to view [...]
[...] This GPS tracker has been written about before by my counterpart at East CLC (see his post here), but I thought I’d add my own opinion [...]
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