Customer Reviews

Zometool 1 - Creator 1

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

 

 

I've been using Zome Tools at home with my kids for seven years now. We discovered them at a gifted conference and my son begged me to buy him a set! Zome is fun and versatile. This Creator 1 kit is big enough to use for many different designs. The handy storage box fits everything in a well organized manner, so you can find the pieces you need easily. Zome is fun for kids from about age 6-7 up to adults. The youngest may have some small trouble with connecting the rods and spheres, but it really isn't too tough. The thing that sets Zome apart from other building tools is that you can connect pieces at many different angles. Zome is used in science and math classes to model all sorts of things- snowflakes, DNA strands, dodecahedrons, etc. This is a GREAT product!

I purchased my Zometool set to illustrate polyhedral geometry and the simplex method to my graduate linear programming class. These ideas require 3-d geometry to explain properly. In particular, Zometool makes it much easier to explain to the students why degenerate vertices are such a nuisance.

Zometool is fiendishly clever in its design. The different colored struts are keyed so that they can be inserted into the connectors only at certain angles. The lengths and angles are such that one obtains the desired geometry without a lot of trial and error.

My kit was made in the USA. The storage box is sturdy, with proper hinges and clasps.

I bought this for my precocious 9 year old grandson who absolutely loves it. He makes many of the complicated polyhedra delighting in each creation. He's gone through origami and much, much lego, but this really captured his imagination.