It is really well done. It is well constructed, the projects work, the items are high quality, the "snap" circuit construction is really ingenious.
Also, by fiddling around with the circuits, varying capacitance, resistance etc you can see what the effects are-- in other words you can experiment.
And finally, there are little bits of instruction in the manuals that give small insights into how the circuits work.
But, this is where the Kit fails. A lot of the circuits can be built and afterwards you don't a single clue about how they work. Nothing in the manuals. The 750 experiments are haphazardly thrown in so that conceptually linked projects are all over the place. It is POSSIBLE that if you could do the experiments in a certain order you might get some insights into the electronics, but there is no way to find out by looking at the included manuals.
It really is a great shame that this fantastic kit has such lousy manuals. I have ordered the student guide to see if it helps.
Here is a typical example: I built the AM radio kit (project 242) in about 15 minutes. Yes, it works. But I have no clue how it works and nothing is said about how it works. I may as well be a well trained monkey in that sense.
I think seeing it work could stimulate curiosity that would lead to research into how radios work.
But again, it is a huge shame that it does not come with a more instructive manual.
One final comment: the radio works, but it (and many other projects in this kit)uses an integrated circuit to work. So, there is really no way to figure out what is going on. However, I did find that Elenco has some circuit diagrams of the integrated circuits in this kit, on their web site. So you can download them, stare at the squiggles and think, gee whiz, isn't that something? Wonder what all those squiggles inside the black box actually do?My family gifted this toy to my daughter's best friend for his birthday. He is a 7 year old boy who is very enthusiastic about construction and construction toys. He has only had this toy for a couple of weeks but plays with it for hours at a time and even requested to bring it on his family's vacation. There are ample experiments to follow and there is room for experimentation, which is where the real learning takes off. I assisted him with the helicopter/fan and light experiments and helped explain the differences in the parts (which were fairly easy to distinguish between). But he was able to pick up the basics fairly quickly and enjoyed it with minimal assistance and supervision thereafter. The snapping circuits are easy to use and marked for easy identification. The circuit snaps held in place and the overall design was solid. This toy seems to provide an excellent opportunity to teach a developing mind circuitry basics especially if they already have a developed interest. I would advise caution with the potential for electrical shorts created by a young child if left unsupervised.
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