Science Kits

This is a pretty basic book/kit about electronics from SmartLab Toys. I did this science project with my 6-year-old and I would say it’s a pretty good fit for kids in the 6-9 range. The younger kids will obviously need some help putting the wires and motor together but an 8-10 year old should be able to do most of the experiments by themselves.

As with most SmartLab science toys, the best part about it is the excellent book that it comes with. The book in this case, by Luann Colombo and Conn McQuinn is called “Lights, Wires and Wheels.” It’s a basic primer about electricity- how batteries work, how current flows, and how all these in a combination can be used to power a light or make a motor run. The colorful optical wheels that you can connect to the motor’s shaft is a great bonus and serve simply to make the projects more fun.

Overall review- at a price of under $20, and for the age groups mentioned above, the SmartLab First Electronics kit is a great learning toy. Highly recommended.

Ever wonder what’s going on inside your computer? Give this computer science kit a try and you won’t be wondering anymore.

This was a pretty cool kit to work with, though a bit on the upper end of the difficulty spectrum. You get to program your own microcontroller, and build circuits to accomplish a variety of different tasks.

This kit comes with the manual, software, hardware to connect to your computer, and various odds and ends for constructing your projects.

The manual is very well done with easy to read explanations, easy to read circuit diagrams, and pictures to show what you would be building.

You can build various gauges to measure light, voltage, moisture, temperature, and a few other sensor based projects. There are other projects, of course, such as a dice game, a timer, amplifier, a recorder/player, an alarm, and a traffic light.

The software for programming the microcontroller is Windows only, requiring an older style communication port to work (though it does come with a USB adaptor), so people with Macintosh or Linux systems will have to either boot to Windows, use a virtual machine, or borrow someone else’s computer to program the device.

I’d enthusiastically recommend Thames and Kosmos Microcontroller for the young geek with a technical flair or the older geek looking for something to tinker with.