We're often asked
questions like, which is the best
 chemistry set
or which
telescope or
microscope
would we recommend for a bright 9-year old child..
Usually the answer depends somewhat on who the item is for, how old are they,
what are their interests, how good are they at reading instructions, how patient, and so forth.
However, we often find ourselves repeating the same explanations, e.g. about the
differences between astronomical and terrestrial telescopes,
and recommending particular products more often than others, so here are a few suggestions that you might find helpful.
Ultimately you must know the child or adult best, and what will work best for them, but hopefully these notes will give you
a head start. And please do call or email us if we can help you narrow things down a bit more!
First, some very general tips:
- Name-branding isn't always a reliable indicator of quality, regarding science toys.
We have seen Oxbridge-branded motorised solar-systems that orbit the wrong way!
(clockwise is wrong, anti-clockwise is correct, seen from North. Same as Earth's rotation).
And a world-famous Geographic company lends its name to some good products - and some truly awful rubbish...
It used to be that most children's imagination would be captivated by the night sky - how many stars are there, how far way are they, could they
have inhabited planets? Perhaps they still are captivated, if light pollution and video games haven't gotten in the way..
A popular solar system toy is the
 Motorised Solar System,
which shows the planets orbiting the sun (anti-clockwise from above).
For the more advanced astronomer, we recommend the
Star Maps from Celestron.
Nothing recommemends a product better than "we use it ourselves" - and until recently, we had the
Giant Solar System Mobile
hanging in our living room. We took it down after buying a Wii and hitting it too often... but we'll eventually hang it up elsewhere.
If your young'un loves animals and bugs, perhaps they'd prefer an
 Ant Works to a
Zoetrope?
Originally developed by NASA to enable ants to burrow without the tunnels collapsing during lift-off, this space-age ant farm is easy for children
or adults to maintain - the gel is the ant food so no need to supply anything else!
If ants are a bit smaller than you really want, but a
dinosaur is too big - try
Triops!
These ancient creatures have been around for over 200 million years.
They make entertaining little pets, and grow up to 2" long.
The oft-heard gripe that chemistry sets ain't what they used to be is basically true - it's not just us oldies yearning for the good ole days,
chemistry sets have been heavily watered down for health & safety reasons. Whether that's gone too far might be a debatable point,
but modern chemistry sets can still convey some of the essential fascination of mixing stuff and seeing reactions - they just won't blow your fingers off!
We usually recommend the
 Chemistry Lab
because its got twice as many chemicals as any other set, and comes with an instruction booklet and CD, at a reasonable price.
For younger children, the
Chemistry 100
might be more suitable, or the
Kitchen Chemistry.
Electronics kits haven't suffered the same fate as chemistry sets, being intrinsically 'safer'.
The usual voltages are far too low to pose any hazard. Some of them have a flying fan thingy that might fly up into an unattentive child's face,
but not with much force. But oddly (in my opinion) electronics kits are nowhere near as popular. Perhaps chemistry sets are just
too ingrained in our minds as the archetypal 'science toy' and electronics kits are simply overlooked..?
Modern electronics kits are 'pop-n-snap', i.e. components just click together. No soldering, very easy.
We think the best one of that kind is the
 Explorer 2, closely followed by
HotWires.
In both cases the instructions are clear, but sadly stop short of explaining how the circuits work!
Such a lost opportunity! Better in that respect is the
10-in-1 Electronics kit,
although its rather limited, and used the old-fashioned spring-coil construction method - but the instructions booklet actually explains how
the circuits work!
These gadgets combine a dollop of science with a barrel-load of fun, and while they are usually suitable for children, adults can play too!
If you like the idea of influencing something purely by brain-power - try the
Star Wars Force Trainer.
We were a bit suspicious of this when we first heard about it - maybe the thing randomly decides to send the ball up or down?
But after some practice, you find that its your choice, not the machine's.
If that's more than your budget for nifty but otherwise useless gadgets, how about the
Zero Launcher?
This toy creates vortex rings - just like smoke rings, only not made of smoke.
Buy 2 and send the rings into or through each other!
The most versatile is probably the
 Green Laser
- not only can you use it as a cool pointer for things near or far,
but you can also use it to perform several neat experiments or tricks:
- Diffraction grating - shine laser beam through grating (or onto the shiny side of a CD or DVD) to split it into several beams...
- Magic Fireworks Glasses - same as above, only this splits the beams in 2 dimensions and gives you an array of dots - a cool disco display!
- Solar Radiometer - shine laser beam onto black surface of vane to speed up rotation
- Zero Launcher - shine laser beam through the fog
- Mirage Hologram - shine laser beam onto piglet - what will happen? You know the piglet isn't really there, yet the beam illuminates it!
- Mineral Study Kit - shine the laser beam into the translucent crystals to make them glow (like Superman's Kryptonite!)
Good children's microscopes are really hard to find. Some might say, impossible.
The lenses are usually plastic and poor quality.
The highest magnifications are almost useless.
Getting a good focus can be hard. The supplied slides are boring. And so on.
We find the
MicroPro to be just about acceptable.
Or consider getting a
digital hand-held microscope,
which is great for studying rocks, leaves, bugs, the back of your hand, or bits of your head,
the computer monitor screen (see the individual colours in the pixels),
or even your own eye!
The 'classical' microscope requires that specimens be cut into very thin slices and mounted on slides.
This might tax the enthusiasm of some children, so the afore-mentioned digital hand-held microscope avoids that - as does the
stereoscopic microscope.
Although the magnification is only 20x, this is adequate for getting up close & personal with bugs, etc.
Now if you want to view plant cells or bacteria, a magnification of a few hundred would be better. Consider the
 P3-A or the
SCM-200.
Is it for astronomy or terrestrial use?
Some telescopes can be used for either, but more realistically, certain features are optimised for one or the other.
Generally speaking, an altazimuth refractor would be better for terrestrial use than an equatorial reflector.
Altazimuth refers to the way the telescope is mounted, usually on a tripod. It swings up and down, and side to side, like a camera.
Equatorial is when the 'vertical' axis is tilted over, parallel to the Earth's axis, making it easer to track celestial objects as the sky rotates.
A refractor is the 'classical' kind with lenses that you look through, aiming towards the target.
A reflector has a curved mirror (concave, like a shaving mirror) at the 'bottom' end, which reflects light up the tube to a small 'diagonal'
mirror which reflects the image out the side to a viewing lens. So you look sideways on to the target.
Hubble is a reflector (as Lucy and I well know, having met as programmers for it), whose mirror reflects light back down the tube through a hole
in the main mirror (yes, the one that they got wrong).
Now mirrors are good because they reflect different colours equally.
If you recall the really cheap microscopes and telescopes you might have had as a child, they had coloured fringes around things.
The cross-section of a lens is essentially like a prism. They make nice rainbows. You can overcome that to some extent with expensive combinations
of lenses - or by using a mirror.
Another good thing about reflector telescopes is you can get a bigger mirror than a lens for the same cost.
Bigger is better because you can gather more light, especially necessary at night.
Less important during the day, for terrestrial use.
Now, if you really want one for dual use (e.g. for a child who may or may not get into astronomy), which of those features can you sacrifice or compromise?
I think you should consider a
 refractor with a equatorial mount.
This way, the user can look 'in the right direction' rather than sideways, which makes it easier to aim;
and the equatorial mount makes it easier to track celestial objects, and to find them when you learn about celestial co-ordinates.
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