Tinker Crate Review & Coupon – Hand Crank Flashlight

Tinker Crate is a subscription box that inspires kids to explore and learn about science, engineering, and technology, plus have tons of fun. Every month, you’ll get a new crate to help kids develop a tinkering mindset and creative problem solving skills. It is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) focused and designed to help kids build their problem solving skills and to gain the confidence and curiosity to tackle problems where there’s no one right answer. The free box offer details are at the end of this review!

This was everything that arrived in our September 2015 Tinker Crate – the supplies, a fold-out instruction sheet, and the Tinker Zine.

September’s project was a hand crank flash light – love a good electronics project for kids! The sheet tells you everything that came in the box, some tips, and help if you can’t get it to work.

The instructions are clear and easy to follow and include both visuals and text, with lots of tips and checkpoints to test whether you’ve assembled your flashlight correctly. 

I don’t know if I can stress enough how integral the zine is to this box!

The Tinker Zine this month.  The theme was making electricity and explore the history of electricity generation, the science, and provided experimental activities. 

YES! Edison vs. Tesla. My daughter was utterly fascinated by this.  While it may be too young for the Oatmeal in general, I could totally see some Oatmeal Swag show up under the tree (Tesla > Edison). I need Tinker Crate to come out with a line of geek clothing for kids!

This was so engaging and interesting and really got her interested in circuits and electricity. For reference, our daughter is almost 7 – a bit under the recommended age of this box, but she loves it. If you have a precocious and super-interested child, don’t hesitate to try it out (although they may need a bit more help!). Our daughter reads the magazine cover to cover and we find that she has great retention of the information. The style is conversational while still being 100% accurate. There’s all sorts of goodies in here – read the whole thing!

There’s fun and engaging text, plus try this out activities.  I loved that there were testing activities with the electronics components and that kids were encouraged to Tinker!

This was not just an assembly kit but focused on what each component does and how it works.

We didn’t have a 9V battery around but we are so going to do a pencil lead circuit! I love that you can take the whole month to finish the projects, or go as fast as you’d like.

 The supplies for assembling the flashlight housing.

The electronics. Included were a breadboard, crank motor, LED, a capacitor, resistor, and diode.

We experimented with the components, assembled, tested, housed it all and got a working flashlight!

 The sticker is cute but also prevents your crank from catching.

Tada! As usual we headed up to my closet where it’s nice and dark and tested it out. There are two LEDs in series and we had one inside to show off the assembly and one outside.

This month was fantastic – it sucks kids in with an awesome flashlight, gets them to play and experiment with the components, and seals the deal with the AC/DC battle. We really enjoyed this one and continue to be impressed with Tinker Crate.

Visit Tinker Crate to subscribe or find out more! Use code MS30 to save 30% on your first box!  (or Kiwi Crate  and the KiwiCo family subscriptions Koala Crate and Doodle Crate).