Product Description

Elenco Snap Circuits Pro 500-in-1:

Elenco's new Snap Circuits makes learning electronics easy and fun! Just follow the colorful pictures in our manual and build exciting projects such as FM radios, digital voice recorders, AM radios, burglar alarms, doorbells and much more! You can even play electronic games with your friends.

All parts are mounted on plastic modules and snap together with ease. Enjoy hours of educational fun while learning about electronics. No tools required. Uses 4 AA batteries

Pro Version - Contains over 75 parts including voice recording IC, FM radio module, analog meter, transformer, relay, and 7-segment LED display. Build over 500 experiments.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3089 in Toys & Games
• Brand: Elenco
• Model: SC-500
• Released on: 2006-06-12
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 2.40" h x 15.40" w x 20.00" l, 4.90 pounds

Features

• AWARDS: The National Parenting Center-Seal of Approval, Dr. Toy 100 Best Children's Products, Dr Toy Best Educational Products
• Contains over 75 Snap-Together parts. Build over 500 exciting projects.
• Clear and concise Illustrated Manual Included and Available Online.
• Build 500 experiments.

From the Manufacturer
Elenco's Snap Circuits makes learning electronics easy and fun! Just follow the colorful pictures in our manual and build exciting projects such as AM radios, burglar alarms, doorbells and much more! You can even play electronic games with your friends. All parts are mounted on plastic modules and snap together with ease. Enjoy hours of educational fun while learning about electronics. No tools required. Uses "AA" batteries. Not included.

Customer Reviews

More information available on the web
I just played with this (Snap Circuits Junior) for the first time and came looking to buy one for my kids.

In response to the person who said the manuals have errors, see the web site http://www.snapcircuits.net/ (and also http://www.elenco.com/ as mentioned below.) In particular there is a page that gives corrections to all the manuals: http://www.snapcircuits.net/updates.doc .

Another concern I had is which kit to buy: Junior, Pro, etc.? On the snapcircuits web site they have a price list for replacement parts and upgrade kits. For the difference in price between the kits you can upgrade from one to the next so this takes some of the worry about of the purchase (for me at least). http://www.snapcircuits.net/scparts.pdf

Somebody at home better be a trained electrical engineer.
My eight year old son loves this toy, BUT...

The book is full of errors. I'm afraid that a child would quickly become frustrated without someone around to troubleshoot the mistakes. I estimate that about 50% of the projects contain some sort of error. They're all minor problems, but the projects won't work until they are corrected.

It's really amazing how many different kinds of problems seem to crop up. Examples are: Missing parts from diagram, wrong parts specified, circuits that no longer "fit" together because mechanical design was changed, some component values seem to have been changed causing some circuits to need adjustment, some illustrations make it impossible to tell which component they are using, etc. The manufacturer just needs to sit down and build each circuit and update the book.

I should stress, once again, that my son and I love this toy. If you have the necessary skills, you should definitely get it. It's just not something you can give a kid and walk away from.

You can read the manuals before buying!
Very much to the manufacturer's credit, the manuals that come with most Snapz products are online as pdf files. See www.elenco.com and click "User Manuals."

If you examine the manuals for this "Snapz Pro" product -- which is apparently called the SC-500 on the manufacturer site -- you will find that the entertainment value should be fairly high, there are a lot of whizzy gimmicks you can build. However the educational value -- in terms of learning anything whatever about electronics -- is about zero. All you do is match the color and shape of the components to a picture and snap them together. There is no attempt to differentiate the components other than by color and shape -- the relative meanings and functions of, for example, a "resistor" versus a "capacitor" versus an "FM radio chip" are simply not explained. It's just so many brightly colored units that are to be connected in a directed pattern.

The projects are not graded from simple to complex, the first ones in the manual are quite elaborate but simpler ones appear later on.

The same company also offers electronic training courses using the same components but with teaching manuals that are graded from simple to complex and do teach the meanings of the components, but this is not one of those.