Sandbox AR vs FTW Fly
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sandbox AR
Create, build, and explore immersive virtual worlds using augmented reality. This app allows users to scale creations to life-size and share them with others. It's designed to bring interactive technology into educational settings.
- Create, build, and explore in AR
- Life-size scale exploration
- Share creations via QR code
- Capture snapshots and videos
- Teacher audio descriptions (DE:X subscribers)
- Link to curated resources (DE:X subscribers)
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--- Multi award-winning augmented reality maker app --- - BETT Awards 2023 Best AR/VR ! - GESS Awards 2023 Best Digital XR / VR / AI Product - spaces4learning New Product Award 2022 ! -- What is Sandbox? -- Experience, build, and explore in AR with Discovery Education Sandbox. Designed as a companion to the award-winning Discovery Education Experience learning platform, bring immersive technology and content into the classroom. Choose from hundreds of models and create a virtual world to experience and share with fellow students and teachers. Use life size mode to scale up and walk inside your own creation! -- Features -- • Create, build and explore in augmented reality. • Explore creations in life-size scale! • Share your sandboxes with other users with a simple QR code. • Capture snapshots and videos of your sandbox. -- Enhanced features for DE:X subscribers -- As a Discovery Education Experience or Espresso subscriber, access additional features to add teacher audio descriptions to sandboxes and add links to your own curated resources on Experience or Espresso. Integrate with studio boards and access future additional model packs.
FTW Fly
This app makes STEM learning accessible and engaging for students through cutting-edge technology and educational resources. It introduces flight theory, mechanical design, and coding basics using drone and sensor technology, making robotics and engineering fun and hands-on.
- Accessible STEM learning
- Coding, robotics, and engineering
- Drone and sensor technology
- Flight theory introduction
- Mechanical design basics
- Hands-on learning opportunities
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Take your classroom’s curiosity to new heights. Through cutting-edge technology and comprehensive educational resources, Hopper makes STEM learning accessible and engaging for students of all abilities. We are dedicated to helping educators revolutionize STEM education by providing the tools to make diving into coding, robotics, and engineering fun and accessible. Hopper takes Build | Fly | Code to the next level. Introduce your students to flight theory, mechanical design, and the basics of coding with the latest drone and sensor technology. And, because Hopper’s hardware is robust and reusable, and its software, getting smarter constantly, educators can create more opportunities, and expand hands-on STEM learning to underserved communities and students of all abilities.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Sandbox AR at 4.7 against FTW Fly's 4.2. FTW Fly's advantage is device support (3 vs 1). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Sandbox AR holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 11 and 5 respectively.
Sandbox AR ships an update every 2 months, FTW Fly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sandbox AR | FTW Fly |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (11 ratings) — better | 4.2 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 11 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.6 GB | 40 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Discovery Education Inc. | FTW ROBOTICS LLC |
Customer experience
Sandbox AR
FTW Fly
In-app purchases
Sandbox AR
No in-app purchases
FTW Fly
No in-app purchases









