Customer Reviews

Elenco Solar Deluxe Educational Kit

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

 

 

I bought this solar educational kit for my son 4th grade school science project. After reading the reviews from the others, I was skeptical about the product. Since this is the only solar educational kit on Amazon and the price is reasonable right, we decided to buy it. We received the product in two days. The instruction is straight forward and easy that my son can do it by himself without my help. We also bought the spot flash light for about $10 from Home Depot to use it as a sunlight for indoor. This worked really well for the fan, but for the light bulb you need to use the sun light as well. Overall, this product is good for young kid science school project. My son really enjoyed it.

For the price, it is more than sufficient for a science project. Parent would need to help mount (screw) the panel and the accessories it powered - all down to a platform, so all the child has to do is to hook and unhook the wiring from the sockets. I also stapled (secured) the excess wiring down to the platform to minimize the chance of accidentally damaging the soldered contact point(s).

It works great. It is not a toy that your child would keep playing. but for science project, it is fun, and cool thing to demonstrate the concepts of electricity, voltage, current, amps, etc.

This set is exactly the same as the Radioshack Model 277-0011 "Solar Deluxe Educational Kit". As the other reviewer stated, this is poor. After returning one set for a defective solar panel, the second set seems to have the same problem. It is difficult to setup due to having to use the wrench. Compared to their Snap Circuits SC-300 (which is excellent), I don't know why the company failed to use simple snap modules.

I bought this for my 14 year old son that we home school for a science project. He was impressed with the workings of solar. It was a good interduction to solar.

On a recent school assignment for the Young Inventors Project, my daughter was asked to observe three problems in the world and determine if she could come up with solutions to those problems as well as develop a working project for one of the problems. She decided that she would like to speak to her class about solar energy and how it might produce a cleaner and safer energy than our current methods. I initially bought two individual solar panels, some 6.3V bulbs and electrical tape, but had trouble building the circuit. I bought this kit as a backup.

The kit was simple enough for my daughter who is 9 to assemble on her own without issue. During our first run at the kit, we were very quickly able to test the light bulb, radio and fan without much issue. As we completed our project on a fall evening, we used a 100W bulb to conduct most of the testing. The speed at which one is able to assemble the kit can make grasping the concept of solar energy very easy to explain and demonstrate. The child is able to learn about other important concepts such as circuits, jumper wire and electrical currents.

On the other hand, the ease of assembly doesn't allow for any sort of robust circuit troubleshooting as I remember being available in the electronics panels of my youth. This is definitely a great starter kit for the price. I would recommend it for classrooms as great standalone projects that each student can put their hands on when attempting to more deeply engage the topic of solar energy.

This one may be tossed - tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow, it'll be gone
Just thinking about, tomorrow
Clears my brain from cobwebs and much sorrow
It's no fun

When I'm stuck with a toy that's lame and boring
I just stick out my chin and grin and say, ooooh

This kit will be tossed, tomorrow
So I gotta hang on `til tomorrow
For trash day

Tomorrow, tomorrow
I love you, tomorrow
You're only a day away


Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration there, but really, this toy can't hold a candle to the Snap Circuits Jr. SC-100 Educational kit by the same company.

For starters, this one requires a screwdriver and spanner to set up, and it's extremely unlikely that a typical eight year old will be able to do the (few) projects without adult help. The instruction manual begins with line drawings and schematics for connecting circuits in series and in parallel, and continues with the calculation and formulation for such things as "how many rows of solar cells are needed to make a solar panel work for a solar musical unit of 4.5V 100mA"

After they make your head spin (without the help of a solar panel), when you get to page 10, they helpfully add "If you do not want to make any calculation, just skip and follow the simple instructions below", which is followed by a series of black and white illustrations with captions like "No.2 screw connected to No.4 screw with jumper wire"

After you get all this done, you need to ensure that the panel is in direct sunlight. You can apparently use a 100W bulb 5 inches away from the panel, but only for 3 minutes, as the heat may melt the plastic frame. (!)

We connected the panel to the motor and fan today, and put the panel on a sunny window sill. I'd like to say we were blown away, but as the kit includes no form of storage for the charge, every time a cloud passed over the sun we were out of the flying fan and into the fiery heat of the day.

You can also connect small appliances depending on the required voltage and amperage (up to 4.5V or up to 300mA), but without a battery and charge controller it won't be very effective.

While this kit has the right idea at heart, they need to work on the presentation (looks cheap), the ease of set up for the target audience (from 8 years old), the instruction manual, and above all, they need to offer a complete solar set-up that can actually make the projects work effectively.

This one is not likely to be a favorite for anyone of any age




Amanda Richards, January 1, 2009

For the price the solar panel kit is reasonable deserving my three star rating. However, it could have been much better. The solar panel powers a motor (fan and discs), noise maker, and light bulb. The light bulb does not operate very well. They should have used an LED rather than the old style type bulb. The bulb wasn't very bright in the sunlight and who needs a light when the sun is out? The best project is the fan. The motor can also be attached to discs that move cutouts. The noise maker requires the least amount of sunlight, but it makes the same annoying noise. The solar panel looks well constructed with easy to use bolts that fasten the connectors to the panel. The instructions were not difficult to follow.

Now to some suggestions for future toy designers. The educational kit could have been improved substantially if it was integrated with powering a car. Kids enjoy seeing movement. Another idea is using the solar panel to power a rechargeable battery that could then power an LED when the child goes in the dark or even better yet the car so that when the panel goes in the shade the car keeps going.