Customer Reviews

Green Science Windmill Generator by Toysmith

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this the other day after seeing in at the Marin Headlands Visitor Center at Rodeo Beach near SF. The kit is relatively easy to build. The motor case cracked a tiny bit when we inserted the motor into the housing. It looks cool. The biggest problem is that you need a good bit of wind to make the thing spin. We found you could flick the propeller to start it, but it needed a stiff breeze to keep it going. Also, you need to put some ballast in your soda can or it will fall over. We filled ours with water and froze it for a more solid base. Cute toy, but we probably won't buy another. Next, we'll try mounting it on a long pole to get more elevation, and hopefully more wind.

The directions tell you to add water to a bottle for stability, but it doesn't work very well if it is truly windy outside. And, you need a lot of wind to get the thing going. Our bottle tipped over almost immediately and got the LED light wet-apparently ruining it--so we never got to see the windmill light it up. Filling the bottle with sand or dirt would have been a better suggestion. By following the directions I wasted 13 dollars!

I bought this kit as a demonstration for our science unit on renewable/nonrenewable energy. I put it together at school in about twenty minutes, including having to take the unit apart because I put it together wrong. (Totally my fault.) The kit was made of high quality materials. The instructions were adequate. When the kit was put together, it could be demonstrated for the class merely by spinning by hand, or by using a fan. It worked outside during the onset of a rainstorm. I did not set it down as the base (empty soda bottle) is too light to withstand the wind. I would suggest filling the base with sand for stability if you wanted to set it down. I would buy other kits from this company.

A great educational toy for future scientists and anyone interested in alternative energy resources. My 10 year old son put this together without any help. It works great and is a good value at $16.

My son is 9 and it was very easy for him to pull it together.

The first time my son wired it wrongly, so the LED would not turn on.

It took me a lot of work to take the screws out, since they are of poor quality, and can be wasted easily, making the hole bigger, therefore less friction to turn the screws.

Finally I took it out, my son corrected the wiring, and now it works.

We made it a winter day, and there was no wind outside. Our fan is in the attic. So I used a hairdryer to produce the wind, and test it.

A hairdryer is enough to make the amount of wind you need to prove the effect of wind power.

Next time I would start the experiment with a DRY bottle, with no water in it. So we can avoid the possibility of wetting the LED, and frustrate the experiment.

After the experiment, I asked my son to read the part of "How does the generator work?" to learn together. It was very interesting to know that a small wind generator can supply enough electricity for a home, school or factory.

This was a nice project to start the interest of the child on wind power, and to learn more from websites about wind powers.

Ex.

About wind power:

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Cool projects to try at home

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as my excited 8 year old son received this, windmill, windturbines are his collections, we read the instuctions and quickly put it together. it worked well in a darkened room. when i took the generator off the pop bottle top that it was barely able to be secured on due to the plastic and screws combination, the top that fastened to the bottle broke into pieces. i do not know if it is brittle from the type of plastic or poor design, but i now have a very expensive broken toy that i have had a great education of checking into something further for money back guarentee's on. not happy with this product.

I am not a kid but wanted to make it. I was interested in the series of kits the company sells. My husband bought it to me on my birthday. He told me I can get anything, I chose this and an infrared surface temperature sensor.

It was easy to make it and it works. However, the gears and other parts look a little frail and it won't survive a category 2 hurricane. The reason I mentioned hurricane is that the diode lamp is dark unless you expose the propeller to extremely high velocity wind. Well, I guess I like something more elaborate than usual kid does, but since the diameter of the propeller is not so large, you need a strong wind. You have to run so fast to cause it. You can attach it to your bike but you have to speed which may not be so safe to do in the darkness. Also, this is not water proof, so you can't leave it outdoor.

If you want to make it valuable as an educational tool, you may want to encourage users to do some experiments such as increasing diameters and exposing it to a fan and change the velocity of the wind to see how much the intensity of the lamp changes. Ha ha.

My son and I had to use a blow dryer on high to get this thing to turn fast enough to get the light to come on. We used more energy to light the light than what the project should have done on it's own with wind power not hurricane force winds. Other than that it's a neat little project for kids to be involved with.

Overall this product wasn't that bad it worked was fully functional and easy to build. i just had one problem the cap that you were to attach to the water bottle was loose and it didn't fit an ordinary bottle you had to get a two liter soda bottle. All in all the product was good and i would recommend buying it.

If your child is not truly interested in Science do not buy this toy! My son is really interested in how things work,so he enjoyed this. However, adult help is needed and the thrill was gone by the end of the day.