[Ad- gifted product] It’s been more than a minute since we last wrote up one of the KiwiCo Tinker Crates, with the last one being the super-cool Glowing Pendulum from last September. However, we had a couple of the boxes around still, mixed in with other science boxes, and so Kai and I decided to open one up during a recent long weekend. This one, box five for us, was the no-nonsense named Color-Mixing LED Crystal kit.
The Color-Mixing LED Crystal kit does somewhat betray the science with its title, however, it does make for an incredibly cool little desk light and is an incredibly practical and easy to understand experiment in light mixing. While kits like the Crane and Pulley, or Walking Robot, are more mechanical, they’re also a little bit more gimmicky, and probably won’t last for long in a child’s smaller room. On counter-point, this kit definitely will as it can easily double as a cool desk light, in fact, it has in this case.
While the Pendulum was a bit more chaotic (in fact, it educated on Chaos Theory), this one is specifically about the visible spectrum of light and has extra information included (as well as a few links to online resources) which expand on that quite heavily. There’s a little bit of wiring/electronics to be done as well, as the Color-Mixing LED Crystal kit uses three LEDs (RGB) to light up the included plastic ‘crystal’ mould.
The accompanying book includes explanations of conductivity probing, how LEDs work, what resistors do and how you can tweak the included ones for different results, and more.
Assembly here is really easy. You place together the base, its fittings and the plastic mould — this is done through sticky pads and a few ‘chad’ pins. Then after that, you attach the battery, resistors and LEDs, fitting them all to each other and the casing with the included instructions. One thing that I don’t think I’ve pointed out previously is that the boxes come with guidance shapes and outlines on them which assist with placing stuff, which is a great way to minimise the scope of error and ensures a pretty consistent design.
Once all of that is done you’ve got yourself a ‘crystal’ on a base with three metal pieces that you can pivot to touch the chad pin, when they do that it completes the connection and powers the LED. From there, and at the heart of the experiment, you can turn on a combination of lights in order to mix the colours. It’s fun, simple, and — as I said before — is bright enough to create a decent desk or night light.
We’re lucky enough to have quite a large room for Kai at this house, which has meant that we’ve been able to get him some space to store and display some of his experiments. We haven’t had to worry about that for this one, the crystal lives next to his bed on a surface; he turns it on at night to brighten up the room, and I’ve caught him reading the Tinker Zine with it in white-light mode.
This looks great. My son loves crystals – he collects them so putting this together would be fun. I love the blue LED too.
The lamp is really lovely! You can change the colors on it too.
This is so cute! I would love to have one too!
It was really fun for him to put it together.
This is so so cool! I wannnnttt..,.I love that it’s a DIY, super interesting.
It is a really fun kit!
This looks like it would be super fun for kids! It looks really cool too!
It’s such a good project for them to work on!
What a fun box! I would love to get something like this for my daughter. She would love it!
It is such a fun kit!
This looks like great fun and something kids will love that is fun to d as well, my kids would have loved this
It is a really fun kit.
This looks like so much fun and educational too which is always a bonus, my boys would love this kit! It’s going on the list
Laura x
It is such a great learning tool and they do not need much help with it either.
looks fantastic
What a great imaginative idea
Love this! Creativity is really important in children’s gifts and crafts.
Looks like great fun
Love how it combines hands-on electronics with a clear, engaging lesson on light mixing.
Such a fun way to learn
The girls would love
What a great Christmas present this would be
My granddaughter loves this sort of thing
My great nephew loves new tasks, so he would this!
My crystal loving granddaughter would love this
It’s a really amazing piece of kit, would love one myself.
This looks really interesting to keep my grandsons amused!
What a fabulous concept, my children would love these.
Looks great 🙂
Great fun prize!!
Exciting!!!
Looks like a great concept
Its such fun
Looks like It’s Lots And Lots Of Fun
Ideal for my nephews
Looks like it could keep them occupied for a while!
I love it – we all enjoy creating fun things in our family
love for my son
Looks fun and educational
This looks incredible! We home educate my son and this would be a perfect activity
We love anything crafty, so many benefits and it’s great to know they are learning too. Looks like a good little set, would be a fab Christmas present
Lovely prize. 🙂
looks good fun
Looks fun and educational too, would be a big hit in our household!
Looks like a fun thing to craft.
This is something my niece would find fun to do.
A great prize to win as a Christmas gift for my son.
I think this is something that my grandson would like.