Snap Circuits PRO SC-500
by Elenco Electronics Inc
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List Price: Our Price: $44.99 You Save: $52.96 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of Snap Circuits PRO SC-500
Customer Review: Wonderful toy, rather confused web site support
Summary: 5 Stars
I should like to refer to the excellent review by Eric Verwillow. The toy is the work of genius, but the manuals could use a refresh, the web sites are the work of a pre-Internet generation (The company was founded 30 years ago by two electrical engineers), and marketing is not exactly a priority. Mr Verwillow's links to correction pages and the upgrade kits require a bit of sleuthing to find.
[...].
Elenco.com tries to cover their educational market, soldering kits, and non-toy devices.[...].
Other than the upgrades kit the key parts to consider are the combination of the Student Guide (experiments up to SC-300) and the Student Guide extension (covers the added experiments of the SC-750). Some Elenco documents mention a teacher's manual, but I get the sense that's obsolete.
I had to print out a paper form to order these, and even do my own arithmetic! First time I've done that in over 10 years. There is a (third) online site for ordering the manuals and other parts but it was so poorly done I preferred to trust the post office.
This toy really is a blast from the past, but it's wonderful.
I don't recommend the SC-750, I think if you're looking for more experiments beyond these 500 you can either order the upgrade kit from the 500 to 750 or look at other Elenco products.
Update 2/22/09: I have received the two student manuals I ordered -- the base manual for the SC-300 and the extension for the SC-500. They provide the educational background that's missing from the retail kit; they're very well done. I recommend ordering the student manuals, I think Elemco/SnapCircuits should include an order form with every kit.
Customer Review: Satisfied Parent
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this as a Christmas Present for my 9 year old daughter. She has taken interest in putting puzzles together and I thought the Snap Electrics Kit might match that interest and spark (pun intended) her interest in how things work. This Kit is well made and engaging. I sat down with her to build the first few projects - mostly to teach her how to approach reading the diagrams, sticking with it and problem solving ("Oops, we forgot a #2 connector.") After building a few projects, she began building other's on her own and even has started building her own circuits - all with in a few days.
I disagree with the comments made here that you have to be an "engineer" to use this Kit. Most projects are no more difficult that putting together a 100 piece puzzle and many are actually easier. It does teach kids to transfer what they see schematically on paper to a real world physical object. We found this fairly easy to do and believe this is an important skill for kids my daughter's age to begin to learn (One less "I can't read instructions," illiterate in the world). One thing that took us a few trails and error learning is that teh numbers on the schematic drawings next to individual parts represent the level the part is snapped on to other parts. For example, a "1" means the part snaps on to he circuit board, a "2" means a part snaps on to a piece already on the circuit board, and a three means a part is snapped as the third level above the circuit board, connecting to pieces already on the board.
True story: my daughter was playing with this kit with a 7 year old girl friend and was overheard by my wife to say "This is a really good present - I Like it."
Customer Review: Great electrical teaching toy
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought the SC-500 for my four grandkids ages 10, 8, 7, and 5 for Christmas and have used it with the 10 and 7 year old. This was fun for both the kids and the grandparents. The instruction booklets are well illustrated and written so that directions are easy to follow, but at least one person in the group needs to know how to read and count. The projects are ordered in the books by complexity, so after doing the first three my 10 year old was ready to jump ahead and try something more difficult. This was good practice in understanding the importance of organizing parts and assembling them in the directed order. She was able to show her younger brother what part was next and where it was to go. Parts are big enough and sturdy enough for little fingers to manipulate without risking breaking the part if they push too hard when snapping together without making sure the line up is right on. Each project has a short summary to describe its purpose. Even though the instructions tell you not to vary from the illustrations for assembling the various circuits, these kinds of project invariably generate the questions "why does it do that?" and "what if we did this instead?", so we were off to learning about diodes, switches, and other ways of controlling electricity and answering our own questions right away. I would highly recommend the SC-500 for any parent or grandparent who is willing to spend some time having fun and teaching young minds about electricity.Customer Review: A super toy, great backing from manufacturer, two small tweaks
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this as an educational toy for my grandson. Working with it together
has been a lot of fun. There are enough bells and whistles (star war noises, etc)
to really draw in a kid's interest. The board and snap on pieces are very well
designed and easy to work with. My grandson has taken to it like a duck to water.
So why not ALL five stars? just a couple of points. I'd like more circuit understanding
information in the basic books. (The company tells me there is additional material
dealing with this area, I just haven't gotten it yet). The second point is based on
a problem with one project. We (probably me, not my grandson) assembled a circuit
wrong. When we turned it on, the Q1 component started smoking, it was kaput. I called
the company and they SENT A REPLACEMENT Q1 FREE OF CHARGE! That says a lot for the
company! I think that if a circuit breaker element were integrated into the battery power
supply modules a problem like that may be eliminated. I am really excited about the
Snap Circuit concept. They have done a truly great job. With the two tweaks I mentioned
I'd feel completely comfortable with all five star ratings. Heck I'd become an unpaid spokesman for the company. Kudos on a super idea, well executed. Yes, I'd recommend this to a friend.
Customer Review: You can read the manuals before buying!
Summary: 3 Stars
Very much to the manufacturer's credit, the manuals that come with most Snapz products are online as pdf files. See www.elenco.com and click "User Manuals."
If you examine the manuals for this "Snapz Pro" product -- which is apparently called the SC-500 on the manufacturer site -- you will find that the entertainment value should be fairly high, there are a lot of whizzy gimmicks you can build. However the educational value -- in terms of learning anything whatever about electronics -- is about zero. All you do is match the color and shape of the components to a picture and snap them together. There is no attempt to differentiate the components other than by color and shape -- the relative meanings and functions of, for example, a "resistor" versus a "capacitor" versus an "FM radio chip" are simply not explained. It's just so many brightly colored units that are to be connected in a directed pattern.
The projects are not graded from simple to complex, the first ones in the manual are quite elaborate but simpler ones appear later on.
The same company also offers electronic training courses using the same components but with teaching manuals that are graded from simple to complex and do teach the meanings of the components, but this is not one of those.