Tech Will Save Us Solar Thirsty Plant Kit | Educational Steam Toy, Ages 8 & Up

Dislike directions only available online

This was a fun afternoon project for my little one. The pieces are simple to put together and the instructions are clear and well illustrated. My child is 6 and was mostly able to do it himself. We did the plaster casting in a box to avoid mess. My child learned a lot and the project was fun and approachable. We will be buying more of their products.

Educational, fun and easy to assemble kit. The "Tech Will Save Us" promise is a bit over the top though :).Build a little solar powered semi-automatic watering system and then see your plant grow. The price seems a bit high for what it is, otherwise I would have rated it five stars.

This is both fun and technically easy to do if you follow instructions. It's made to stimulate interest in science, so make sure your child is the right age for this kit or it might not interest them at all. Although the sparks are enough to get anyone's attention honestly. I would bet adults would have fun working with this kit too.The only downside, which isn't really a downside, is that it doesn't look very appealing sticking out of your potted plants. But that's hardly an issue if your child ends up liking the kit.

Silly page after page online instructions. No download and they make you register to get it. Kind of slimy business practice.

UPDATE 08-04-2018: My mistake re the leaflet link for the instructions--the ending after the dot is "co", not "com", so the link as printed does exist. It doesn't change my star rating, though. An adult or child still must create a profile on the kit manufacturer's site to be able to view the "thirsty plant" instructions. In a high-priced kit (about $34 on Amazon), the instructions belong in the box.-----The first strike against this TECH WILL SAVE US THIRSTY PLANT KIT (Educational STEM Toy, Ages 8 and Up) is that there is NO instruction manual packed in the box. The second strike is that the printed leaflet actually included in the box gives a web address for obtaining the manual that no longer exists. (The company domain is available for purchase, as if the company were out of business.) The third strike is that once you locate the online manual, the thirsty plant kit requires you to cast a columnar sensor from plaster of Paris (what a mess!), but doesn’t include a stirrer or the soft clay needed to close the bottom of the mold during casting.If you want the instruction manual, you can Google “tech will save us thirsty plant kit”. It appears that the PDF version of the manual no longer exists. (At least my browser wouldn’t open the pdf file from the link that Google brought up.) However, there is an online instruction manual available (as of 08-04-2018) if your child--with adult permission--signs up for a free membership in the kit maker’s “Club Make”.The third strike is a little unfair of me, in that the product page listing mentions the use of plaster of Paris. However, if you haven’t made anything with plaster of Paris in years, you will end up with a horrible mess on your work table. It doesn’t help that the instruction manual says to pour “a thumb” of water into the included dish for mixing, when you actually need about ¼ of that (or about ½ of the amount shown in the photo). I guess the manual means a child’s “thumb”.If you succeed in making the water sensor--which needs to dry for 24 hours before you can continue assembling the kit--then putting together the circuitry seems fairly simple. I do wonder whether an 8-year-old can do it without adult help, though.As far as I can tell, the completed water sensor will work as advertised, and flash a LED light (in the daytime only) when a potted plant’s soil dries out. Unfortunately, I can’t say for sure that the sensor works, because I bombed out at the sensor-casting stage.