Snap Circuits SC-300
by Elenco Electronics Inc
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List Price: Our Price: $35.00 You Save: $29.99 (46%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $22.99 (click here) Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of Snap Circuits SC-300
Customer Review: Great Toy!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Best toy that I have ever bought for my daughter. I love this set! BTW - this is my first review after at least 50 purchases on Amazon. I am a 43 yr old guy with an 8 yr old daughter. We took this set out of the box and started having fun immediately. Kids look at a picture that tells them how to build something cool. They snap pieces to a plastic board and within 3 minutes they have a lit up a light, have a fan spinning, a speaker playing "happy birthday" or are turning on/off any of the above by clapping their hands (Clapper style). My daughter and I have only spent about 30 minutes with the set so far and were burning through the different projects. There is a lot of learning here for her and for me. We created a fan that blows air in one direction and then reversed current and had a little propeller launch itself into the air. We accidentally mis-connected something and got "happy birthday" to play backwards... I need some time alone with this set because I want to learn more about circuits in parallel and in series, resistors, etc. Awesome fun and best learning toy I have seen! Well made and easy for kids to go from picture book to project snapped together. Get one!Customer Review: Great introduction to electronics!
Summary: 5 Stars
The intent of this purchase was a homeschool introduction to electronic circuits disguised as a Christmas gift. That goal was achieved beyond my wildest expectations. The first lesson was scheduled for one hour. Five hours later we finally had to break for supper. Immediately afterwards I was directed straight back to this set for two more hours (and many evenings since). My six year old daughter now knows more about open, closed, serial, parallel, etc., etc. circuits than most adults I know. If you too are tired of buying junk toys that can't hold a child's interest past the check out lane then please consider this set. The directions to the over 100 projects are very easy to follow for even the most novice of users. Each piece has the standard schematic symbol as well as an easy to follow Letter/Number code. The same six year old made an oscillating siren triggered by a light sensative diode without assistance. Now really, when is the last time you gave a gift that triggered tireless experimentation and endless questions about electricity, magnetism, transistors, LED's, integrated circuits and much more? Now if I could just find a chemistry set that was this user friendly!Customer Review: BEST toy to learn about Circuits
Summary: 5 Stars
We just gave this to our 5 1/2 year old. He immediately stopped opening all his other Christmas presents and began to play with this for two hours straight. He's played with it everyday since for a week. This toy provides two large booklets full of experiments that teach things like how to make a Police Siren, how to light up bulbs and how to set a flying object in motion with enough electricity. It is safe and very smart. All of our other science kits created mess on the floor ~ I would usually find loose wires, old batteries, magnets and broken bulbs. This handy tray creates a work space for everything to stay in one place. And with that, it's a better teaching tool because it provides reduced chaos to the learner. We've even taken it on a road trip already, it's so portable. I can't recommend this product enough, and it is well worth the money. We can throw all the other (5) kits out and he'd be just fine with this one kit for the rest of his learning. Excellent and easy to read instructions, as well. Whomever designed and created this certainly knew what they were doing. From experience and exposure to other lesser products on the market, this is the kit to buy.Customer Review: Fun for an older brother or sister or a parent with a younger child!
Summary: 5 Stars
This isn't really the kind of toy that you can give a six or seven year old without doing some of it with them to start with. This is really fun to do together, and the project manuals gave me an easy way to look up what she or I wanted to do without having to hunt through all of the examples.
The only thing that bothered me is that some of the parts on the "Volt Resisters" and others are naked instead of being covered with a protective piece of plastic like the light switches. I'm not sure how resistant they are to rough play, but I'm not taking any chances. Our Whistle Chip was also slightly bent out of the box, and doesn't respond to clapping. Tapping the chip will activate it, though. The photo-sensitive part is also touch-and-go. We ended up just going with a regular connection instead.
I also bought the [...] at the same time, and I'm really glad I did. It's a lot easier than hunting down batteries and I couldn't use our rechargables as they're not Alkaline 1.5V batteries.
We did the first four examples, and did a couple advanced ones all in only 1 or 2 hours. It was loads of fun, and I highly recommend this toy!
Customer Review: Fun - probably, learning - not as much
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought it for myself (I am over 30) in a hope to learn electronics. But it turned out that I could not efficiently use it. The parts are so colorful that it distracts from concentrating on the principles behind. Besides the actual parts are lost on the huge bright plastic base background. It also takes some time to put the circuits together - longer than it would take to put them on a breadboard after some practice (even for a kid). Besides the toy requires putting additional parts to keep the parts leveled and snapped to each other properly, which adds complexity.
The included booklet is thorough, but lacks almost any explanation of the principles of electronics. A kid would just connect the parts - the circuit would sound an alarm or else, but why it happened and how to use it to build other circuits will have remain unclear.
As of lesser importance, but very noticeable is horrible packaging. The kit arrived with parts thrown all over the box.
No, I would not recommend it to a friend.
P.S. I had similar kit before where I there were metal springs to attach wires to - I thing that kit would provide better learning experience.