Tinker Crate Review & Coupon – Fiber Optic Stars

November’s Tinker Crate was all about learning what we can from the light emitted from stars.  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 November 2015 Tinker Crate – the supplies, a fold-out instruction sheet, and the Tinker Zine.  This box had a major project and several mini projects using a similar technical approach.

The kit included everything needed to construct a fiber optic LED illuminator, as well as patterns for various constellations to guide the light thrown from our  illuminated fibers.

Along with materials and instructions, you get some handy pointers and a troubleshooting guide.  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 illuminator correctly.  The instructions look busy and complicated, but the opposite is true — the high level of specificity and detail makes it hard to take a wrong turn without realizing it quickly and setting it right.  They are great instructions for the target age, because they don’t assume that you know too much about the mechanics of the project (which would leave you guessing if you lacked the requisite knowledge).

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

It does a superb job of framing the topic of exploration, as well as bringing in enough background to properly “illuminate” the project.

The Zine examines the role the stars, in particular the North Star and the various constellations, have played in human history — both as navigational aids and fuel for the imagination.  We love the way the Zine grounds everything in science, e.g., discussing the relative distances of the stars in the constellations, despite their apparent close grouping when viewed from Earth, rather than discussing only the mythology surrounding them.

For reference, our daughter is 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!  This edition had experiments and explorations that could be performed with readily-available materials from home.

The Zine has fun and engaging text, plus try this out activities.  This edition explored the behavior of light when passing through media and along or across boundaries.  The articles do a wonderful job of building on the main theme and using appropriate terminology.  Our daughter reads through the Zine, and she doesn’t come away talking about magic illusions — she discusses refraction and reflection.  We love it!

The interior of the illuminator case had useful markings to help with assembly.  The flaps and necessary holes were all pre-cut.

The back of the constellation board, with fiber optic cabling attached where we need the stars to appear.

Viewed from the front, the cables work well to carry the light to the appropriate point without stray light illuminating anything else.

The completed assembly holds the power and light source safely inside, while allowing our young astronomer to marvel at the cabling and behavior of the light.

We really love Tinker Crate — the protest are fascinating and extremely well thought through.  The STEM focus is much appreciated, and the Zine and the project choice itself do a great job of making the projects really fun!

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).