Customer Reviews

GeoSafari Motorized Solar System

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It's the worst toy I ever purchased. The top half of the sun is supposed to click on, but it doesn't stay and falls off all the time. It's also supposed to project the planitarium on the ceiling, but the image is out of focus until you literally move the whole thing one inch away from the ceiling. Besides, planets move at the same speed, which is really ill designed for the expensive price. My 7-year-old child is very interested in solar system. She was very excited to bring the toy home. But she was very disappointed to see what a crap it turned out to be. Now the toy just sat at a corner. Big waste of money.

It looks great in the picture, but don't be fooled. My husband and I are both physics professors and we bought this for our daughter's ninth birthday. When we unpacked it and discovered that all the planets take exactly the same time to complete an orbit, we were appalled. That a company which calls itself "Educational Insights" would sell a product which promotes completely wrong thinking is misguided and unforgivable. The only thing a child can learn from this is the order of the planets, and for that a stationary model would be much better.

My complete disappointment in this product actually inspired me to write my first amazon review. The top half of the sun falls off if a cricket chirps too loudly and the "planetarium" part is nothing but a bunch of big blurry dots with illegible writing unless you hold it sideways 2 inches from the wall. Your child will get nothing from this product that they couldn't get from a cheap plastic mobile. Save your money.

The toy is a practical example of a solar system in motion. Creating a mechanical solar system with an actual scaled speed showing the planets motion (as the apalled physics teacher stated) would simply be impractical as Pluto would appear motionless while Mercury whirl furiously around the sun. Presenting a drillpress-like danger to children. That level of realism is more appropriate in educational software. Secondly even if it were to accurately depict the proper speed of the planets orbits it would still "appal" physics teachers since all the model planets would still trace unrealistic circular orbits and distance scales could never be accurately shown. In its present form this model is an exciting demonstration of the solar system and an excellent decoration for any childs room.

My son liked this toy for a week or two, but now he is bored with it. It was good to show him a 3D model of the solar system, but I agree that it's wrong to have the planets all travelling at the same rate of speed. Since he wanted the toy to "do" something, he promptly took it apart. We are now missing Uranus! It does make a good decoration for his room, though, even though we are missing a planet. Also, the planetarium feature that is supposed to show the constellations on the ceiling was not too effective.

This "model" violates virtually every rule of modeling. The planets are equi-distant, painted the wrong color (I thought Neptune was Earth), and out of scale with each other and the sun. More appalling is that they all rotate at the same speed. A complete waste of money.
Why did I buy it when there were so many similar reviews?
Because I didn't buy it here and so I didn't read the reviews. Doh!

While this toy does not demonstrate the actual relative speeds of the planets around the Sun (planets closer to the Sun move faster), you shouldn't expect it to for 40 bucks. That kind of authenticity would cost a lot more. The educational value of this toy is still sound and anything that increases the awareness of the worlds outside our own for our kids is of value.

Now, granted, my son is in Pre-Kindergarten, but we LOVE this model. It did exactly what we wanted it to. It gave a basic idea about planets rotation around the sun. Now, maybe for a high school student or college student it would be important to know the relative rotation speeds. It would also be great if each planet rotated on its own axis to show how day and night occur, but what the heck do you want for $40. We have books and videos to explain these things. Maybe the professor parents need to take their 9-year-old to one of their college-level classes to get a higher order learning of the solar system.

I bought this even after reading the reviews and my 5 year old son LOVES IT! Yea sure they all orbit at the same speed. For a 5 year old that likes planets this is great. He has not stopped playing with it since he opened it. He says it the best Christmas gift he got.

The model has educational value in that it shows the relationship of planets to each other and to the sun around which they orbit, but it will not stand up to rough or abusive play. We purchased it as part of a science exhibit for the local children's museum and plan to display it under Plexiglas as a museum piece with a switch to be operated by interested youthful viewers.

As part of this review, we want to emphasize how impressed we are with the XUMP Science Toys. When we notified them that the electrical adapter was not included with the system as noted in the product description, they responded immediately that the part would be shipped to us ASAP at their expense. We are pleased to say that we received the adapter within 3-4 days. We are very impressed with the customer service of this company.