Customer Reviews

Smithsonian Giant Volcano

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I picked this item up for my 6 year old nephew who loves science.
We put it together one night and I was surprised to find that the base and volcano are incredibly thin plastic that crack under any pressure at all. The plaster/sand mixture was impossible to work with, it just balled up into clumps and there was no real way of spreading it around smoothly. We both ended up with plaster all over us. Once it had dried, he was excited to get to paint it. As soon as he began to paint, parts of the plaster started breaking off in chunks.
Hooking the plastic tubing up was not a major problem but I had issues keeping it hooked together. The "pump" system was supposed to send vinegar into a baking soda chamber to push up into the volcano. Instead the "pump" (which was a squeeze bottle) pushed the vinegar weakly upwards and then once it hit the baking soda chamber it clogged up. When it finally made its way out through the volcano after me squeezing the bottle as hard as possible, it barely trickled out. Once it had trickled enough, the rest of the plaster fell off as it got wet. He and his sisters just looked at me and asked "Is that it?" After three tries we trashed the whole thing.
Also, the "rock samples" that they give you in the kit are the size of the tip of your fingernail. I'm a geologist and these are not rare, expensive rocks. There was no reason to not include larger samples.
He was very disappointed in the whole thing and so was I. I can't believe that the Smithsonian put their name on this product. We'll go back to our plaster volcano with vinegar and baking soda.

I bought this volcano kit for my 8 year old son. We were really excited to put it together. We carefully read the directions and quickly mixed up the volcano mix (directions read you have 1-2 minutes before it sets up). As soon as I added the water, the mix began to set up which made it impossible to pour into the mold. We ended up with a crumbly mess and no volcano. Needless to say, my son was very disappointed. I'm pretty good at following directions, but this set up so fast it was ridiculous.[...] Save your money.

This was very disappointing. It did not erupt - it barely fizzled. I added 12 of the tablets and couldn't get it to do anything. I would NOT suggest to anyone!

How much fun is this? I think I'd rather wrestle a crocodile. We didn't even get past the building the volcano. The cement solidifies within seconds of the water hitting it, so you can forget about even getting it into the mold. And the mold itself feels like it'll break if you look at it. We'll try playing with the fizzy tabs later, but that will be after I make a traditional salt-dough volcano. My 9yro was EXTREMELY disappointed that his birthday present was a complete flop.

Just rotten, my niece was incredibly disappointed. Just no way to get it poured before it sets. Horrendous waste of money & so disappointing for the kids.

I'll keep this short as most seem to agree with me. I agree with the other one star reviews - making the volcano was really a pain, and my six year old was sad because he couldn't help (there was really nothing he could have done). But what was an even bigger disappointment was the "eruption". We followed the instructions to the letter and there was absolutely no eruption. Eventually we added all of the "eruption tablets" in hopes it would do something. Nope... they all just dissolved at the bottom of the volcano. The club soda was just purchased that day and wasn't opened until right before we used it. A total WASTE of money. On a plus side, right after this we went outside, mounded dirt around the club soda bottle up to the neck (making our own "volcano") and then used a homemade recipe we found online for the eruption. My boys LOVED it! It took five minutes and could have saved me a lot of time and a few bucks if I'd done it this way the first time.

Whoops, just realized this isn't the exact same Smithsonian volcano kit we purchased. Oh well, I think homemade is still better :)

Got this product from the Easter bunny. Just as everyone else has experienced...read the instructions, but was unable to pour the mix fast enough. It was hard and crumbly before we could even pour it. It filled in the holes and was hard before we could put any more thru the slots. Huge mess...no volcano, just plaster everywhere, big crumbly mess!!
DONT BUY THIS PRODUCT

Just like others here on Amazon, I tried this out with my children and the solution dried WAY before it said it would. Essentially, I got 5% of the mixture into the mold and then the whole mess dried in the bowl.

If you bought this, all I can recommend is - try twice the water amount in hopes of keeping this more liquidy in hopes of it not drying in 2 minutes. Also, half the mixing time -- 1 minute is all you got in my opinion.

Left my kids dissappointed and me grumbling over the hour of cleanup.

Worked great for us. It was a lot of fun for the whole family. Just finished studying Pompeii so this was a great tie in. Would recommend!

I teach first through third grade in a public Montessori school I used this volcano as a demonstration of the flow of magma through the crater of a volcano. My assistant put the volcano together and said that the material was a big funky but was not difficult to use. We let the volcano set over the weekend, painting it after it was completely dried. The volcano worked exactly as it was suppose to and the children were completely enthralled with it. By the end, the tube did have some of the compound in it, but the vinegar flowed quite easily. I particularly liked the idea of the vinegar coming up through the volcano rather than pouring it on top. I definitely recommend this product as it produces a more realistic model than the one where vinegar is poured from the top.