Science Kits ~ Solar Power...

With school curriculum trickling in, due to an ordering fiasco, I'm  finally starting to feel better about this school year.  I've ordered heaps of science projects for the boys this year.  It's what they like and they never fuss about doing science school work.  So, I'll be taking pictures when ever we do one of the projects and I'll let you know what I think about the kit and it's educational value.
To start things off we dove into the 6 in 1 Solar Kit.

 The Professor had been begging me to start this project for weeks and it was finally time.  Papa helped oversee getting all the plastic pieces punched out and the construction and wiring of the solar panel.  After that he was on his own and has built 5 out of the 6 models.  He can't figure out where to test the air boat if he builds it so that one is on hold for the moment.  

Things that surprised me...  These are tiny little models.  The solar panel is about the size of an i-pod nano.  The instruction book has all of two sentences that could be taken as educational instruction.  Basically the sun can be harnessed as power is as deep as it gets.

I require the Professor to keep an science notebook where he first writes what he knows about the subject and then he lists what he hopes to learn from the project and then after he's built one he writes about what he learned or what surprised him.  He also writes down any conclusions he has come to on his own. 
For the price this box of projects is about what I expected.  It's educational value is less than I expected.  It's fun value is more than I expected. 

There's no battery for the solar panel to store energy into.  It either receives light from the sun or a bright bulb and runs or it doesn't.  There is no on/off switch.  We had to get it really close to the bulbs to see it work.  When the sun hit it outside it worked much better.