SNAP CIRCUITS Light STEM Electronics Kit, 175+ Projects, Ages 8+

I was on the fence between Light, Green Energy, and something cheaper involving gooey science projects, and I’m glad I spent the extra on Light. My niece is pretty smart for a 6 year old (it’s 8+), but once she was able to connect “match the pieces to the picture” she was really excited about it. The grid was initially challenging for her, and I’m not sure she understands the z-index ordering of pieces from the diagram numbers, but it’s close enough to Legos that she could pretty quickly figure it out from the pictures. I was initially skeptical about the construction, since you have to push pretty hard to snap the pieces together, but once she figured out how the pieces stack and to only push down on the buttons, the danger of pieces snapping in half was reduced dramatically. Only use SnapCircuits on a sturdy table, ideally a large one. My niece did not know how to put batteries into, well anything, but I think she now understands: -which direction goes towards the springs now -electricity moves in different directions (the arrows are SUPER helpful for explaining) like water or a current -it must complete a circle somehow or else it won’t light up She can more-or-less read the instructions at her age, but I don’t think her reading comprehension is quite at the instructions’ level yet, or that explanations about resistors will be appreciated, so she definitely needs an adult to help out for now, but it seems like something that will grow with her (and there are more kits out there!). She went through 5 projects in ~1-2 hours, so there are probably hundreds of hours of entertainment between the booklet and online projects. She was most excited about the discs when the box was opened, but then she was excited about the lights. We did not get to any of the audio components and several other items. She was really excited when she figured out, after breaking and fixing project 3, that you could take the black and red wires, and if you connect them to either side of the batteries and the light, that you can turn the light on and off. Her mom’s dad gave her electrical projects as a kid, but it was difficult to find *many* kid-friendly electrical projects, so she didn’t get very far— it made her happy to see her daughter excited about Project 5 of 150. My niece is 6 and now has a vague comprehension of how electricity works, and more importantly, she’s excited about it. Probably one of the smartest gifts for a kid who really likes following instructions, assembling stuff, and things that light up.

Our first snap circuit set came in the house about 4 years ago, It is STILL in regular use today. My now 5 year old became a huge fan of his older sibling's set a couple years ago, so we thought it was time he got his own. The Lights set seemed a perfect fit for him. He is a VERY curious kid who asks who stuff works all the time. This set was a huge hit. There are numerous fun parts to this set. Not only the lights, but the flying disk (which whizzes up very fast) and the optical illusion spinning pieces. Now you add the feature of being able to hook up, in our case, an Ipod and get a light show, home run! This is a great parent child activity for younger kids, and a perfect challenge for older kids to follow directions for desired results. I love the durability of the pieces, and how the company has then packages for easy storing and organizing.

This such a cool toy. A coworker recommended checking out snap circuits for my 6year old almost 7. I think he’s a little too young to do it by himself but it’s great family time. We randomly open a page and try and build it. It’s pretty easy to use overall and there are loads of builds to try.

This was a gift for my grandson. He liked it

I bought two of these for a weekend electronics play date. I bought them both new, and they were sealed from the manufacturer, but on opening them, one had all the parts loose in the box (all the parts were there, though) and the other one was neatly packaged, but missing all of the 3-snap wires which are important to every project. Looks like replacements are easy (and free) to request from the website. However I am super annoyed that I bought two kits, and both had packaging issues. The kids didn't care about loose parts and were fine with sharing, and had a fun time building circuits. My daughter is 9 and her friend is 11. It seems like a good toy for kids in this age range. My daughter needed some supervision and help, although with a little experience she probably won't need it anymore. There is a lot to read, and they were excited to get started and got annoyed with my reading, so I ended up skipping most of it and just got to building circuits from the diagrams. The parts really simplify circuit-building and the visual diagrams/instructions were excellent. This kit starts with some simple circuits that illuminate LED lights that are immediately easy to achieve, and then kinda goes up and down in complexity rather abruptly through the 100+ projects. We did about a dozen of them and the kids were eager to go off-script and experiment. The spinning propeller blades (my daughter called them drones) were especially fun. They had about an hour and a half of playing with circuits before they moved on to other toys. I did circuits with my daughter again the next night, including the sound parts that let you play music from your cellphone (tablet in our case) and we played with our kits for well over an hour, and she was still interested in it when I called it quits for bedtime. Overall, I think this was a lot of fun and I appreciate the educational aspects of this toy. I think we should have started with the basic kit, because I think this kit is meant to build on the knowledge and skills you learn in earlier kits and it didn't seem like this kit explained basic electrical/electronic concepts. Hard to properly judge it since we didn't read everything. I expect that we will continue to get lots of fun out of it as there are a ton more projects to do and my daughter seems happy to redo things she already knows. I also want to mention that I am impressed with the fiber-optic communication that this kit demonstrates with diodes, fiber optic cable, and a phototransistor. I intend to buy more Snap Circuits products -- although I am worried about packaging problems with the maker, because it reads like I have already hit the lifetime limit of 3 free "replacement parts" per customer with the very first kit that was missing 3 parts. This will probably be a lesser problem as we get more kits and wind up with some redundancy.

My 9year old was super excited for this since that’s what they’re learning in fourth grade and have one classroom, i didn’t know that and bow hes happy he gets to play with it at home

Grandson is 10. He is sometimes distractible, even for a 10 yr. old. But he was captivated by this kit. The pieces are sturdy. The overall design and manufacturing is top notch. As advertised, there are multiple, multiple projects to do. It starts simple, allows for easy success. And builds in complexity quite nicely. There is a fine multiple-page descriptions of "light" though I really didn't delve into this much with him, since just succeeding with multiple projects seemed more important. A couple side things: the "super flying saucer" project really does send the little saucer HIGH. It bounced of a basement ceiling and got stuck over a duct. So, we had to retrieve that. Outside...quite impressive. In any case he was able to virtually do the whole "BIG project" by himself (which is actually fairly early in the set of projects). I was amazed. I gave 4 stars for "giftable" and "easy to assemble". Both because, it does take a little adult assistance in the early stages to help them think about how to put together a project...such as: what pieces will be on a lower tier than other parts? How to think about where to start? Sometimes, not a right or wrong answer, but having an adult invest a little time up front is likely helpful for the overall success.

My kids love this product.

My kids really liked it and enjoying it. Nice ideas and good for learning

funktioniert alles einwandfrei, mein Jungen (8) hat selber angefangen die Beispiele zu bauen, und ist begeistert Es gibt vieles zu Tun, mit verschiedene Lichter, Lautsprecher, Mikrofon, IR Empfänger mann lernt über Frequenz, Kommunikation, Lichtfaser etc. Dazu gibt es ein Buch mit viele Erklärungen und ist wirklich gut. Es ist auf English

With one child who has been in love with electricity/electronics since he was two, Elecno Snap Circuits have been an excellent gift to give to him on more than one occassion. He is always excited when I pull the kit out. The instructions are easy to understand and the results are always impressive to my children. I personally need to learn more of why things are happening so I can explain it to him as we go along, but I have a feeling in a year he'll be explaining it all to me instead. I would recommend this for any child who does, or even does not, have a great interest in electricity.

I bought this for my nephew's 7th birthday. Whilst the kit says 8+ the nephew is very ahead in this area academically and into science and engineering so I got him this (to use with some initial supervision). The build quality of the kit is superb, there are some really lovely touches (for example a flying spinner that's part of the kit is glow in the dark). The projects in the booklet are well described and easy to assemble, and the building blocks are designed in a way that it makes it easy to assemble the projects. There are also some very well thought out and engaging explanations as to what is going on within the projects. My nephew loves it - a really great educational toy especially for Lego enthusiasts who like building things

Très bien fait, solide, facile à assembler. Les composants sont protégés. Jeux intelligent et instructif : ça devient rare Problème : le mode d'emploi en anglais