Educational Insights Nancy B's Science Club Microscope and Activity Reviews

Customer Ratings:

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program After playing with this microscope for a couple of hours, I concluded that the company spent more effort on designing the eye-catching box and graphics than in designing a usable microscope. There are several problems that make this toy too frustrating to really be useful. The first is that all the microscope "movement" pieces are plastic, and so the focus mechanism is extremely poor . . . so poor it makes the toy almost unusable.

To test the device, I got a cucumber leaf from the garden that has spider mites. I found at 30 power it was extremely frustrating trying to get a view of one of the many mites on the leaf. The focus mechanism is very crude, and has many "stick and jump" spots, making smooth focus impossible. Even worse, when you try and adjust the focus, it causes the platen to move laterally, causing you to "lose" the item you were trying to focus on.

If you are familiar with microscopy, you will know that it can be a challenge to get the item you are interested in into the field of view. If touching the focus knob causes the field of view to "jump" over a millimeter or so, getting a point of interest in the field of view and in focus becomes almost impossible. With some work, I was able to get a spider mite and spider mite egg into view and in focus at 30X magnification. At 30X the image clarity was marginally acceptable. The microscope needs a brighter light, as even at 30X the image is fairly dim and low contrast.

I found it virtually impossible to use at 100X. It was simply too frustrating trying to get the mite into the field of view and in focus. Also, the image at this magnification was quiet dim.

I am all for educational toys, and especially for getting girls interested in STEM. However, I fear that this toy is so cheaply made it would have the opposite effect.

Perhaps it is just not possible to build a marginally functional microscope at this price range. In any event, I would suggest spending a little more and getting a unit that has some degree of precision in the focus.

In addition, I would suggest that there are some excellent digital microscopes for not too much more money than this. A digital microscope plugged into a computer opens a wide range of interesting, fun, and educational possibilities.

I wanted to like this toy, but unfortunately, I can not recommend it.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Growing up, one of my favorite toys was a microscope that someone bought me. The one I grew up with was much nicer than this plastic one, but also probably more expensive.

For the price, this microscope is a good deal, and works well enough to get kids interested in science and microbiology.

Likes:

Bottom and top lighting. You can switch between modes.

LED lighting. Fairly bright, and batteries last a long time.

Kid friendly controls. My 5 year old can load a slide and focus it. The nice big focusing knob helps.

Included dropper, sample vials, tweezers, slides w/ covers and labels.

Comes with example slides.

Dislikes:

No carrying case for slides. Everything just comes in sealed plastic bags in a box.

Optics are pretty bad compared to a real microscope. Contrast is barely usable at 400x.

Three fun projects:

1. Pond water. Try looking at pond or puddle water. Ideally, from somewhere with organic nutrients. Water from a puddle in our back yard with a bunch of leaves in it was the best. Take the included dropper and sample vial. Place a drop on a slide. Start at 30 x, you should see a bunch of protozoans and other critters swimming around. So cool!

2. Onion cells. Peel the edge of a layer of an onion so it ends as thin as possible. Place on slide an you should be able to see the individual cells very clearly.

3. Human hair. Cells from a inside cheek scraping. etc..

Overall a very affordable and accessible introduction to microscopes, which are such a fun and educational toy.

I literally spent hours looking at the puddle water and trying to identify microorganisms.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program After all these years, I still remember my first toy microscope set. Receiving it for Christmas was the pivotal moment that launched my interest in Science and led me down the road to becoming a physician.

Opening the package and peering into this microscope with my 5 year-old daughter rekindled that same excitement; what a treat. The optics work surprisingly well for a toy microscope (up to 400 X). I trained on professional microscopes in my medical career, and the truth is this microscope doesn't lag too far behind up to that magnification. Of course this microscope doesn't have any oil immersion capabilities which is what is needed to truly visualize specimens at the cellular level; but that is to be expected given its modest price.

The set only comes with 4 prepared slides (my old toy microscope set came with at least 30; including vials of formaldehyde prepared specimens to dissect, good old days before toy regulations!); so you will need to make some with the included blank slides and purchase additional prepared ones (I ordered the Amscope 50 slide set). If you do purchase the prepared specimens, please be advised that this microscope will not provide adequate visualization of the cellular details that you will need for things like microbes and blood cells.

The styling is geared towards girls (EI does make a more generic looking toy microscope at a slightly higher price point).

Overall, a great toy microscope that is great for what it does.

Honest reviews on Educational Insights Nancy B's Science Club Microscope and Activity

The Nancy B's microscope is very child friendly. I like that there aren't too many knobs etc. It comes with some prepared slides that are nice to start out with. It also comes with the supplies needed to make your own slides which I think will be fun for the children. Overall it seems like a good product.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program First off, let me begin by saying that this is a TOY, not a high powered, professional grade microscope. It's made to introduce kids to the fascinating world of science, and it does that nicely. The price is right, it's sturdy enough, no better or worse actually than the one I had as a child. If I recall, the clarity is actually finer than the one I had, so I can't complain, and neither did my children. They are having a ball pretending to be scientists...discovering new and exciting everyday items around the home and yard. A mom certainly can't complain about that!