Amazon STEM Toy Club is a monthly subscription box service that delivers age-appropriate STEM toy that encourages any child to learn through play. The subscription costs $19.99 per month, and the theme of the month can be anything from natural sciences to robotics. There’s always something new to discover in every box of Amazon STEM Toy Club!
There are three age ranges available for this box: 3-4 year old, 5-7 year old, and 8-13 year olds. This is a review of the 3-4 year old box.
The subscription doesn’t include any Amazon-generated introductory materials – just the toy in its commercial packaging. It arrives in the usual Amazon shipping materials – our two age range selections this month shipped together.
Everything in our box! We ordered the 3-4 year-old and 5-7 year-old subscription items this month. This review will cover the 3-4 year old subscription.
Fisher Price Think & Learn Code-a-pillar ($33.99): An easy to assemble caterpillar that travels according to your directions!
Everything in the set!
A few promo cards advertised the various expansion packs available for the kit. You can buy extra segments with the same basic moves as the original, or you can get segments with special light and sound effects or more complex moves.
A couple of plastic disks are included to use as markers for start and end points.
The operation of the caterpillar is very simple, but the kit includes instructions just in case.
The caterpillar has eight severable body segments, each with a specific command. You code the caterpillar by arranging the segments in order, from head to tail. They snap together securely with a sturdy, USB-style connector. Each segment has a male and female interface, so they are easy to put together and take apart. You activate the caterpillar by pressing the power button attached to the large head segment.
The caterpillar covers a lot of ground – it moved a bit too far for use on the table and worked much better on the floor. When it encounters an object, it stops and flashes a bluish light, telling you to clear the path – it resumes its journey with a touch of the activation button.
The coding level on this toy is extremely basic, so it is a good intro to the concept for toddlers. My older kids immediately recognized how the toy operated, but they had tons of fun playing with it. They set up toys as obstacles and coded the ‘pillar to maneuver around them. The coding wasn’t difficult to figure out – but it was a little tricky to accurately judge the distances, since it travels on open floor and not a metered track. Once again, the value of this subscription is phenomenal – the price of this toy exceeds the cost of the subscription by 75%! That’s good even for Amazon!
If you received something different than our family, let us know in the comments!
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