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It’s been raining! After weeks of lovely sunshine, today we found ourselves with a wet weather day. A perfect day to explore the two Geomag sets Toby was recently sent to try out. Toby loves building kits (all sorts from Lego Meccano and K’NEX, to 3D puzzles). Building things is his third passion behind gaming and cooking, so I knew these would be a hit.
Geomag Mechanics Gravity
Geomag’s Mechanics Gravity is a 115-piece set that is all about the invisible forces of gravity and magnetism. With an RRP of £28, it is aimed at ages 7 years upwards. Let’s look to see what’s inside the box …
Well, there’s a lot of bags full of quite small components! And, fortunately, an instruction booklet!
Ease of use
Looking through the booklet – as a first-time Geomag user – we realised that there are some basic functions that we needed to learn before we started to build. So, for the first 5-10 minutes Toby and I practiced putting the pieces together, and which way up they went etc. We then moved on to starting to construct Model 1. Toby has no trouble quickly building the base layout, but then finds some of the upright pieces really difficult to engage in their correct places. In fairness, we both find elements of the build from this point onwards quite tricky and delicate.
The track in particular caused some frustration, as it seemed to come apart much easier than it went together! But – eventually – the track was complete. It was time to release the heavy magnetic balls. You drop them in the top of the track and gravity sends it flying down and around to hit the magnetic cannon. This flicks the ball up and over the cannon while a ball already there is shot up the track and all around, to once again hit the magnetic cannon. We THINK it is meant to work independently, so that the magnetic balls continue to be sent around the track. For us, it only worked manually.
Toby, at 11 years old (not far off 12) understands gravity and magnetism, so predicted what would/should happen long before he could test it out. For younger children, in the early stages of STEM learning, this would be a really useful tool. However, it would be remiss if we didn’t reiterate how fiddly some of the pieces are to click into place – and I’m an adult. It’s not the kind of kit you could leave a child to work on alone.
Geomag Pro-L
After lunch we took a look at the Geomag Pro-L 75-pieces set. With an RRP of £45 it has a recommend age of 8 plus. Toby immediately understood the concept of this set. Again, let’s start by looking at what’s in the set:
The kit contained 26 magnetic poles, 20 balls, and a bag full of clear shapes. Again, there is an instruction book with a variety of design ideas.
Ease of use
However, with this kit, Toby didn’t look at it once. He told me that he’s built items in school with similar magnetic kits – and this was proven when, after less than 2 minutes, he showed me this house that he’d built:
This is a kit that doesn’t require adult help. With this kit the child quickly learns how to make a strong 3D structure. They are limited only by their own imagination, and the number of pieces in the kit. In fact, our only criticism of this kit is that the instruction booklet gives you ideas of things to make that require over 1,000 individual pieces. Toby really wanted to build one of them, but our box was 900 pieces short!
Even so, he kept making new designs for a few hours, and again the following day. He’s always been into building things and he likes to work things out by trial and error. This kit allowed him to test his ideas to see if they worked. Learning like this is what Toby thrives on.
Final thoughts
It’s never too soon to introduce your child to STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) activities. Learning through play makes up most early-years STEM, and children love it. The Geomag Mechanics Gravity kit didn’t really appeal to Toby. He found it too fiddly and a lot of effort for what he felt was a disappointing completed kit. Although there was a second track he could have made, he showed little interest in doing it. As a parent/child activity, I can see the Mechanics kits working well if used as a teaching tool. I would say it is too complicated and fragile for a child to use successfully unsupervised.
Remember too that the magnetic balls are rather small – a definite choking hazard so they need handling with care.
The Pro-L kit was, conversely, a huge hit. Toby didn’t feel restricted to following the guide, but instead freely built structures with the pieces laid out before him. He already understood the principles of magnetism and the stability of completed structures, so he used this knowledge and his imagination to test the limits of shapes he built. He would have loved 800+ additional pieces though, so that he could attempt to make the star bridge! Â
