Customer Reviews

OWI OWI-MSK672 HAPPY HOPPING FROG JR SCIENCE SERIES

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

[FWIW, I filed this same review on another vendor's product page for this item.]

I recently purchased this kit. The instructions were clear enough and assembly wasn't overly difficult, but I found that after it was assembled it wouldn't work. The frog is supposed to work by having the solar-powered motor wind up (and release) its spring-driven rear legs. The motor works OK, as do the gears that go between the motor and the cam that winds up the legs. Unfortunately, however, the gears are connected to the cam by a smooth round rod, and the friction between that rod and the cam isn't enough to move the legs - the rod rotates, but the cam doesn't move. I tried to fix this by putting a drop of superglue in the cam and then reattaching it to the rod, but must have used a little too much, gluing the cam to the body. The rear legs rotate on a hexagonal rod that prevents the sort of slippage I described - it's too bad they didn't do something similar for connecting the gears to the cam.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this kit to anyone. I did get a small solar cell and pager motor out of it that should be usable for some other project, but still resent that I was suckered into paying for a piece of junk like this kit. I'm honestly curious whether anyone has ever gotten it to work.