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: Eleven year old son can't put it down
Summary: 5 Stars
My eleven year old son saved up his own money to buy this set for himself. He loves building and creating things and playing with toys like legos. He read through the booklet as quickly as he could and built the electric light & switch in less than five minutes. The first hour he had it, he also built: Dc motor & switch, sound activated switch, adjusting sound level, lamp & fan in series, lamp & fan in Parallel, Light emittind diode, space war alarm combo, flying saucer. That was like the first ten projects in the book out of 305 possible projects. His favorite so far has been AM radio with transistors.
That is not to say he'll grow bored with it anytime soon. He's all ready making up his own projects, including a fart machine. Oh my. (I was so proud of that one, believe me.) He is all ready saving up to buy the set that adds on the next level.
I also like that he is inventing, exploring and using his imagination. I am really impressed with Snap Circuits and see it not only as educational, but as a great alternative to kids sitting around and only playing video games.
Customer Review: Great for the younger set
Summary: 5 Stars
Most of the reviews cover this pretty well, just some things I'd add:
If you remember those sets where there was a board with all these springs on it and you had short lengths of wire and some loose electronic components - one of those 100-in-one or 500-in-one electronic kits from Radio Shack, this is pretty much the same thing with one major difference:
It snaps together much like lego, making this kit accessible to a much younger crowd. So if your child can read simple diagrams and can snap together some components, he or she can have a working AM radio or noise generator in a few minutes. Or she can wire up the motor and spin the copter blade into the air so the cat can chase after it. After a while my kid started going through the project book on her own and was building circuits to bring to us to demonstrate what they did.
The box is great since it keeps the pieces and booklets organized.
A fantastic toy. Also, don't forget there are upgrade kits that can add more components that can make an SC-300 into an SC-500 or SC-750.
Customer Review: Excellent Excellent Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
My 5 year old son has an interest in how things work and likes to "experiment." We go this as a first step toward learning about electricity, and it has not disappointed. The projects range from fast simple ones (can get a light bulb and a switch going in a minute or so) to more elaborate more interesting ones (we actually built a working AM radio).
There are endless projects in the book with easy to follow directions on how to put them together.
The "snap" mechanism for connecting components is extremely clever -- it eliminates the challenges of bad connections on wiring boards I grew up with. The snaps are a little hard for a 5 year old to push close, so I find myself helping on them -- although the kit is aimed for somewhat older kids anyway.
Only "complaint" I have is that they could have put a couple educational points about how the circuit is working in the book near each circuit -- to spell out the "learnings" of each project.
Overall though, this is definitely one of the best science kits of any type that I've seen, and absolutely worth the investment.
Customer Review: A good kit for sparking creativity
Summary: 4 Stars
My son is moderately interested in how things work and has bursts of creativity designing and building Lego projects. Both his grandfathers were engineers, so I continue to encourage this side of his heritage with appropriate toys.
I'm glad to have stumbled on Snap Circuits. A child can easily assemble a working gadget with these simple parts. My son was really proud to have made an AM radio. My dad used to teach a class at a church craft club in which the kids made radios. It took weeks of fiddling and fine-tuning. I can't imagine my son having the patience for that enterprise!
Because of the simplicity of the process, though, I'm not sure that my son has gained much knowledge of how circuits work. But his fifth-grade class studied circuits at just the right time, supplementing the knowledge gained through his experimenting with Snap Circuits. The booklets that come with the toy contain a lot of good information, but nothing my son has taken the time to read. Will he in the future? I hope so. I'm just happy the kit sparks his curiosity now and again.
Customer Review: Fun and easy to use
Summary: 5 Stars
The benefits of this kit are numerous. It's easy, fun, and fast to use, so a kid won't get frustrated with it. The diagrams are clear and start with the basics. I haven't seen any problems with the diagrams as they are, but I haven't done all the projects listed.
The cons of this kit are lack of explanation- for example, it gives project diagrams for a basic series and parallel circuit but does not clearly describe their functions or differences. Ideally a parent or older friend could do this project with a kid and fill in the gaps.
I purchased this kit for my ten year old cousin and we had a blast. I only wish I'd had my voltmeter with me so we could've delved into current flow. She had fun and was able to build everything herself without frustration.
The cool factor here is huge- you can build all sorts of nifty stuff quickly and easily. If you're someone with an electrical or engineering background thinking about purchasing this kit for a kid you'd like to get excited about science, this is the right product for you.