The Curiosity Box is a quarterly subscription box to satisfy your thirst for knowledge. Each box comes with 6-9 items that will not only entertain, but also educate you and your family. The subscription is $49.90 per quarter and a portion of all proceeds are donated to fund Alzheimer’s research.
If it a looks a little bit like a GeekFuel unboxing, that’s because the two companies are related.
Each box comes with the Curiosity Quarterly by VSauce.
The quarterly is loaded with interesting, short articles for the curious-minded!
You never know just what to expect in Curiosity Box, but the V Sauce crew has some good taste in geekery. I was psyched to see a version of Castles was an official Curiosity Box selection – this original version of this book was one of my favorites growing up!
A page is dedicated to each item in the box, so you’ll quickly become an expert, or at least you’ll know why each selection is so cool.
The VSauce crew covers a lot of ground with their selections for the box, treating you to engineering, geology, chemistry, math, and all-around geekery.
The box usually includes a Steam downloadable game, and this month’s selection fit in well with the North American eclipse. Every item in the box has a page devoted to it, describing how awesome it is.
The style of the writing is light and quirky, great for all ages.
The space is divided between articles relating to items in the box and seemingly unrelated intellectual digressions.
There was even an article dedicated to the origin of the taco!
A creator spotlight looked into the work of Laura Kampf of Yetis and Friends.
The Curiosity Box now has a separate information card – it’s great for quick reference and for when someone steals your Curiosity Quarterly for bathroom reading. It contains a list of all the goodies this quarter!
As always, INQ the octopus is our guide through the box.
The packaging for the box is top-notch – the individual items are in giftable packaging. The VSauce crew even goes so far as to call it limited edition collectible packaging!
Everything in the box!
This box is really cool looking. But wait, there is actually something inside the box that is pretty cool, too!
Voyager 1 T-Shirt: This shirt will really make your fellow space exploration junkies jealous. The front has a drawing of Voyager 1 with an overlay of technical info included with the craft on its long journey.
Voyager took with it a golden record with recordings of some nature sounds from Earth. The golden colored diagrams on the shirt show graphical instructions for playing the record, the position of our sun relative to other stars, and some graphical representations of other information intended to demonstrate the intelligence of our species. Everything is using known constants or binary to increase the likelihood of intelligent life being able to decipher it.
The back of the shirt is designed like a tour shirt. The Voyager logo reminds me a bit of the Van Halen tour shirts.
The tour schedule shows some significant dates on Voyager’s long journey. The golden record is designed to remain readable for up to a billion years!
Curious Creatures Nikola Tesloth Pin: This awesome pin is the first in the new series of collectible enamel pins. Previously, each box came with an INQ pin, but this idea is even cooler.
This sloth’s biography is eerily similar to that of Nikola Tesla (except, perhaps, the frequency of bathroom breaks).
The pin features a jolly, coifed sloth cradling a Tesla coil.
The back is dated with the year, but not the quarter. I hope they add a pin in every box and not just once a year!
Inq’s Levitating Rings Magnetic Kit: This is a simple device that shows off the polarity of magnets.
The box gives a quick explanation of the science behind the set.
This is the most fascinating set-up, with every magnet opposing it’s neighbor. You can see how the top magnet floats higher than the lower ones that are supporting the weight of all the others.
Inq’s Magnificent Mobile Microscope: This kit lets you turn your smartphone camera into a mobile microscope.
It fastens over the camera lens, allowing you to see the magnified (up to 90x!) image on the screen.
The kit includes instructions on attaching and focusing the microscope.
The entire assembly is small enough to fit easily in a pocket, and it includes a suction cup stand to help stabilize your phone.
The microscope includes both a white LED and a UV light!
Two prepared slides where included, plus three blank slides and a case to fit them all.
A test run showing the duck feather under magnification.
Inq’s Embroidered Sticker Patch: A high-quality embroidered patch of our favorite octopus.
The patch is perfect for backpacks and caps. It isn’t designed to be washed, though, so it’s not great for putting on clothes.
The detail on the patch is amazing – you can read the V Sauce logo and make out the individual bubbles in the test tube!
Cross-Sections Castle By Stephen Biesty ($17.97): This classic is one of my favorite picture book series. It goes beyond the limited view of castles we see in popular culture, showing more than just the throne room and battlements.
The detail of illustration and the easy candor with which torture and other medieval unpleasantness is mentioned makes this ideal and memorable reading for geeky boys and girls.
The book covers everything that goes into castle life – it is the inclusion of the mundane that makes the book so interesting.
We see the preparations and defenses related to siege warfare.
And we also see the logistics of maintaining the lord and the army of servants needed to staff the castle.
Inq’s Eclipse Glasses: These glasses arrived in time for the North American eclipse.
The pack contained two pairs of glasses. They block out so much light, that the sun is about the only thing you can view through them. I tried them out by attempting to view a bare photo bulb, and I couldn’t tell there was anything there!
Yetis & Friends Temporary Tattoo: Your very own, quite fashionable, ink.
Universe Sandbox Downloadable Steam Game: It let’s you design a virtual solar system, tweaking the properties and physics to achieve cool, and sometimes catastrophic, results!
No disk drive required!
Inq’s Scale Solar System Wall Decal Set: A set of decals showing realistically-scaled planets.
The set includes both stickers and an informative poster.
A fact sheet covers the most interesting aspects of each planet.
The individual stickers are scaled to show the relative size of the planets, all beautifully illustrated.
A handy poster shows the relative diameters on one side and the relative orbital radius of each on the other.
The Curiosity Box is always loaded with tons of scientifically-themed wonders. There is an awesome book, usually cleverly constructed non-fiction, and lots of hands-on and observational gadgets – plus a shirt. They cover all manner of subjects in the realm of math, science, and exploration, so you never know quite what cool stuff you’ll get in each box. The materials are scientifically accurate and dig deep into the finer geekery of every topic they treat. There is something for everyone to learn, and it’s always a blast!
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