Thames & KosmosPhysics Pro (V 2.0) Science Kit | 96 Page Color Manual | 31 Experiments | Advanced Physics Education Kit | Parents' Choice Silver Award Winner

This was a gift for my grandson. It was well constructed and productive.

My 8 year old grandson likes challenging activities and this is rated for ages 10 and over. He made a hydraulic loader on his own as he reads the instructions and looks at the diagrams.

This product is cheap but it is also cheaply made. Some of the components are not very strong and so you need to be careful while constructing the projects. Not all of the required components are included in the box, so you may need to buy some additional components to construct all of the projects. Due to these factors and due to the subject material, I would recommend this product for kids over the age of 7, and although I don't think it is strictly necessary, I would recommend parental supervision and guidance for kids of any age. It will help if you have some understanding of physics yourself before working on any of the projects. Overall the product achieves the aim of teaching and demonstrating basic physics principles to children in a fun and accessible way. The one way this could be improved is by upgrading the quality of the instructions because the instructions seem a bit incomplete. You might find yourself guessing from time to time where some part is supposed to connect. The airplane models for the wind tunnel experiment are too weak, and the whole idea of it is also weak, so we substituted the mechanical paper "fan" and the cardboard tunnel by using a 5V PC fan attached to a clear acrylic tube instead which provided much better results (albeit expensive as an additional purchase).

My grandson, to whom I gave the Physics Pro to, was thrilled to receive it and continues to build items with it.

Since my nine-year-old son is very into science, I thought this was the kind of kit he could get into. It sounded very comprehensive, so I hoped he'd get hours of entertainment out of it.He did open it at one point and fool around with it a bit, but he never really got into it, and I wasn't sure why. So I decided one day to sit down with him and try one of the experiments. I found out I was biting off a bit more than I'd anticipated.On the plus side, this kit is very comprehensive--far more comprehensive than I anticipated. It has many, many parts, and the instruction book is packed with experiments exploring various aspects of physics. Experiments are divided into sections on air, water, etc.However, it's so advanced that I definitely wouldn't recommend it for kids, and while a lot of the experiments do seem appropriate for my nine-year-old, I don't think he could manage a lot of them without adult help. This is disappointing because I'd hoped he'd be able to tinker and discover things on his own. Even I was rather overwhelmed by the instruction book. Plus while most of what you need is in the box, some experiments do require other simple, cheap objects, so it's a good idea to look one over and prepare in advance.As for that instruction book, I was disappointed in it. It's got a lot of facts in it, breaking down how and why things work, and that's great, but it read more like a high school or college textbook than I'd expected. The experiment setup does include instructions, but they're very basic, and you mostly have to rely on the pictures that accompany them to figure out how to assemble the experiments. I think the kit would have been a lot more user friendly if the book had contained step-by-step instructions, the way Lego sets do.All in all, this may be a really great kit for older kids (probably at least 12) who are interested in physics. I could also see it working very well in a classroom setting, where a teacher could walk students through the building and experimentation process. For a casual, at-home kit, though, I don't think it works as well. It might have been better had the kit been broken down more into subparts, say maybe a kit dedicated solely to hydraulics, as it would then contain fewer pieces and could have more detailed instructions.

My grandson loves science-related activities. He really liked Physics Pro.

The kinds of projects in this kit are great, but the plastic pieces fit very poorly together and the instructions are frustrating. For example, the hydraulic lift won't slide smoothly so it will not raise up, or in other builds the gears do not line up well enough to get the fan to turn enough to generate a steady flow of air. All in all, it's really disappointing quality - your kid (and parent helper) will have a hard time learning anything because of the fit of the pieces.

Beware the paid reviews, this shouldn't be rated as high as it is... We lived the Thames and Kosmos Chemistry kit and so figured this would be a great lab to accompany middle school Physics. Not so much... The instruction booklet is written from a previous version of the items included so when trying to find corresponding pieces, the pictures do not match up. Not to mention, there are no text instructions for step-by-step pictures so it's very easy to lose your place especially when trying to match up the pieces, as mentioned before, are different now. Then there is the flimsy paper pieces that break as you are trying to connect them to the plastic harness. The wind tunnel isn't plastic, it is flimsy paper at the main cylinder. So when tying to ?tape/glue? the pieces together you do not get a tight fit and it comes apart. As a homeschooling mama, who has purchased multiple kits including online monthly kits, this particular kit is a waste of time and money. Luckily my 13 year old is a budding engineer and will be able to utilize more efficient kids to crate the actual wind tunnel experience. Thames & Kosmos Physics Pro (V 2.0) Science Kit