Frequently Asked Questions

First, it is important to introduce the technology in order of established hierarchies. Demonstrate the device to the headmaster or person in charge and ask him or her to become an advocate. This is critical, as the person in charge should have a clear understanding of the technology before it is presented to his or her subordinates (often teachers). There is a lot of politics in school systems, even very small schools, and no one wants to feel like the people they manage have a better understanding of this new technology.

Second, introduce the technology to teachers as a group before students. When introducing the product to teachers, the goal always has to be how do I make life easier for teachers. Introduce to them the content slowly, and see which teacher or two really see potential for the device in their classroom. An early win is going to be having one or two teachers with a really focused program around RACHEL. Listen to their ideas on how it could help them carefully. Without teacher buy-in, programs do not succeed. Curriculum ideas have to come from local teachers and will change based on which teacher wants to first adopt the system. Growth will come organically in a school if one teacher leads by example.

Third, start small. The initial goal is to set up a pilot class or teaching session within the school. The best introduction is to take things that are costly or a headahce for teachers, and use RACHEL to alleviate issues. The most common example of this is printouts. If you can get one teacher to start using the content upload section instead of paying for, finding, and collecting print-outs, that should be considered a huge win. If you don’t have this win right away, or printouts aren’t digitized already, consider helping them digitize documents with a camera phone. Alternatively, based on feedback in number two above, consider hiding all the content except the one or two content modules that teachers have expressed interest in trying in their classroom. Keep this introduction as simple as possible. Be prepared that teachers may only want to use this as a reference tool for themselves at first. A big concern for teachers is having students understand the technology better than them, it is important they feel comfortable with the technology.

Fourth, be prepared to invest. I can’t understate this enough, if your project does not have a budget for on-the-ground staff or teachers, it is unlikely to succeed. While it seems counter-intuitive that after all the great work and investment you’ve done to get this system in place, more is needed, the fact is, more is needed. The likely first wins will come from after-hours remedial math training. It’s unlikely that teachers are going to immediately integrate RACHEL into their classroom curriculum at first. Teachers who work after-hours are expecting to be paid for their time. This is totally just a reality that is different than many U.S. and Western teachers. Develop a relationship with your key teacher or two, who have expressed a desire to make this work, and find a way to pay them for their work.

Fifth, be available. There are issues that arise, be available to help navigate them. If there is no feedback loop, or desire for ongoing communication, it again is unlikely to have a long-term sustainable program. If you’re taking this to a remote community in a village in the Himalayas and have no way to hear from your advocates on the ground, your chances of success are greatly diminished. Many of our most successful deployments are in areas which internet actually exists, it is just too unreliable, expensive, or slow to integrate into the classroom.

Sixth, be patient. The goals for the first year or two of the program should be that the technology becomes an active piece of valuable equipment. Teachers have ways of doing things that are often fairly rigid from year to year. Deployment and measuring of results for a pilot program is not something that really happens within a year or even two. In our most successful and long-running programs, we began impact evaluations on educational outcomes two and three years after deployment. There are other ways to measure early program success, such as use, student engagement (absenteeism rates), computer literacy, etc. Know what you’re trying to measure and be patient about getting there.

It’s by no means comprehensive, but hopefully as we grow these forums more advice will come in.

We believe that RACHEL has been deployed in at least 80 countries, so it is quite likely that at some point, somewhere, RACHEL has been deployed there. That being said, the only way we have to honestly answer that question while protecting personal information from people who have not given permission to give it out is to check the DataPost map or post on our community forums. 

Likewise, if you would like one day for your deployment to be visible or available for someone in the future to mimic, support, or grow from, please post on our forums about your deployment and utilize DataPost to map your device.

Yes, each RACHEL will come with a printed Quick Start guide. This short guide will go over the basics of turning RACHEL on, connecting to RACHEL from tablets or computers, and registering the device with DataPost.

Our team members in Guatemala have also produced a Teacher's Guide and a Facilitators Guide which can help with setup and integration into the curriculum.

World Possible can introduce you to individuals we know to be experienced and capable trainers of RACHEL devices. Those individuals are not paid by us and need to be fairly financially compensated for their time and effort, however, they are usually willing to travel just about anywhere to provide training in English or Spanish.

Any tablet or laptop with WiFi and a web browser can connect to RACHEL. We do usually recommend 11.6" Chromebook devices with "2x2" WiFi. We offer these new and refurbished on our store for your convenience, but any device will do. Keep in mind that power is often the largest expense associated with these projects and having low-powered devices (smaller screens, no moving parts) can be a benefit for many reasons compared to shipping old laptops or desktops with large screens and fans (also an issue with dust).

Not all content on RACHEL is "responsive" and therefor tablets ought to be used only when refurbished laptops are not available. Connecting over 5Ghz WiFi is nearly 15x faster than the slower 2.4Ghz signal. 

Yes, you are welcome to purchase our 10-pack of refurbished laptop or integrated charging box of new laptops without purchasing RACHEL.

Each RACHEL device is produced shortly after the time of order. If you need your device urgently, you can choose to pay for quicker options at check-out. Otherwise, we commit to having all devices delivered within three weeks of your order date for order shipped within the United States. For international orders, your device will ship within 10 days, however transit times, customs clearance, and other factors make it impossible for us to provide an exact delivery timeline in each case.

We purchase and install 500GB SSD, 1TB SSD and 2TB SSD drives when you purchase a device from us, however the useable storage on these drives is often quite a bit less. This is an industry wide issue, not a RACHEL issue. We therefore quote our storage options as 440GB, 880GB, and 1,760GB to ensure you receive at least that amount of useable storage, some of which is taken up by the software to run RACHEL. 

When is the 440GB version recommended?

• For single language spanish or french content only, with no plans to add your own content

When is the 880GB version recommended?

• For single language spanish or french content and plans to add your own content
• For single language english content only, with no plans to add your own content

When is the 1,760GB version recommended?

• Multi-language support, spanish or french in addition to english
• For single language english content only and plans to add your own content
• For jails or prisons where multi-language support is the default

When a device is ordered outside this recommendation (eg: English language with 440GB storage drive), we do our best to include the most used content. Because content sizing changes with each update by a content provider it is not possible to provide exact differences or lists of what will be included before purchase.

Shipping within the United States is free for guaranteed delivery within three weeks (contiguous 48 states). 

Shipping internationally requires you to add the desired RACHEL units to your chart and begin the checkout process (no credit card is needed at this stage). At the bottom of the page labeled "Your Shopping Cart" is a sample shipping calculator for worldwide shipping. This cost is the estimated cost as of that date to ship via FedEx, DHL, or UPS (where those services are offered). 

This shipping quotes does not include taxes, tariffs, VAT, or fees that may be assessed inside your destination country. Each country sets tax, VAT, or tariffs rates based on their own policies, which we do not track or estimate. Those fees would be in addition to the shipping cost.

Yes, during the process of selecting your RACHEL options you have the opportunity to upload a logo file, which will we print on the sticker next to the World Possible logo at no additional cost.

We do not offer nonprofit discounts. In the past, we offered discounts to nonprofit organizations, however we found nearly all of our customers were already nonprofit organizations and there was no reason to have a higher price and discount process available. This just created additional paperwork on both ends. All devices are assumed to be going to nonprofit agencies at this point in time.

We do not offer bulk discount purchases of RACHEL, except for customers who have at least 10 devices actively reporting in usage from DataPost over the prior 12 months. In this case, we offer $50 off per device purchased in the future. We do not offer this discount in advance of completing the DataPost data uploads, there are no exceptions to this clause.

No, we do not provide for any sort of exclusive distributor arrangements anywhere. 

Yes, we have supported orders of over 100 devices in just a few days time. Generally, we can produce 40 devices per day at this current moment. We could increase capacity if it was called for.

Yes, we can support adding your content to a device. Your content must be placed in a single folder as a collection of files on Google Drive, DropBox or something similar. We will load your content for you. 

You can also create your own module, a simple HTML site and have us install that for you as a custome module. More information on creating a module is here: https://community.worldpossible.org/t/step-one-building-a-simple-single-page-module/1270/7

Lastly, you can create more complicated server based websites. This requires advanced knowledge of webservers, web design, and databasing, however if you have those resources it is not difficult to create your own customized module. We do not offer this creation service but can work with your content provider to explain what is required.

Phone calls are very disruptive to our hard working team that often is in offline settings. We will invite users to a phone call if the question is not answered in the FAQ and a post to our forum has been made (https://community.worldpossible.org). If we cannot answer the question in the forum of the answer relates to something related to private data (student achievement, government procurement, banking details, etc) we will send a private message in our forums with a calendar to book a call. 

We accept purchase orders only from major US based organizations, universities, or government agencies.

Yes, please contact us for banking details. Please send confirmation of wire transfer when the transfer is sent.

Yes, we will work with you to structure a program where you can fund a project in nearly any country or location of your choosing. We can provide everything, including training, hardware, and setup should you want to support a RACHEL deployment

RACHEL sales help us keep the lights on and continue offering a one-of-a-kind product in an easy to obtain online store.

Development of RACHEL and RACHEL features such as DataPost though is 100% donor funded. Please contact us if you're interested in the details of what we are working on or donate directly through our website.

Yes, World Possible commissioned our own M&E report in Guatemala when first starting our deployments. Other partners who have deployed RACHEL have also run their own independent research studies. A favorite statistic from our Guatemala showed that students with access to RACHEL outperformed students without by 12 points in math, but perhaps more suprisingly, students on RACHEL outperformed those with full internet by 6 points also. The ability for RACHEL to provide consistent, high-speed access to education only proved a benefit even against full internet connectivity.

Yes! Our most used sets of content are often high-quality content provided by independent individuals (thank you Fantastic Phonics, Palouse Mindfulness, etc). A copy of content is loaded onto each device, which presents some risk to larger companies who are more profit driven. We also, of course, have a huge debt of gratitude to open-source offline content libraries that help extend our own work, including Learning Equality and Kiwix in addition to the open source community such as Wikipedia and Khan Academy.

When we scrape HTML websites we usually use HTTrack and the work can take multiple weeks to create an offline copy of a webstite from the outside. Having the content provider offer us their content directly is the only legal way to collect non-open source content.

No, RACHEL does not support POE. RACHEL must be powered either by its internal battery or the external charging plug.

RACHEL 4:

• Ubuntu 16.04 32-bit
• PHP 7.2
• Intel Celeron N3350
• 4GB RAM
• 2x WiIFi cards in AP mode
• Support for up to 50 devices connected simultaneously

RACHEL broadcasts a signal up to 150 feet in a straight line from the device in "ideal" conditions. Taking into account walls and interference this range can be a fair bit shorter. It is more appropriate to consider the WiFi signal of your home router, which RACHEL is comparable to.

It is possible to extend the signal of RACHEL by adding powered access points or an additional router to your setup. Generally, these types of access points and routers require constant power (I have to see battery powered versions), but if you can solve for that, adding a router or WiFi access points can not only extend RACHEL range, it can increase the number of concurrent users supported.

RACHEL uses 24 watts of power. It contains a battery which can power the device for about 5 hours and takes 6 hours to recharge.

RACHEL is the size of a small dinner plate or a large hand. It weighs just over 1KG, or 2.4lbs.

It is portable in luggage, but because it contains an internal lithium-ion battery it should stored in checked luggage. Nearly all airlines prohibit devices with lithium ion batteries inside checked luggage without the correct safety protocol.

Please post on the forums with your device symptoms and the last six digits of your device MAC ID (this can be found on the back of the device). 

Yes, the RACHEL 4 device does offer SSH access. Please contact us on the forums for the default username and password.