
KiwiCo Eureka Crate: Monthly Science Kit Subscription - paulchap
https://www.kiwico.com/eureka
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gnicholas
Hmm, apparently I'm the only one who had a not-great experience with these.
Our child received the Kiwi level as a gift and thought one of the months was
cool (the arcade claw, pictured on the site) but the others were pretty lame.
We would have considered continuing the subscription if we could have seen
what was coming, but given our mediocre experience during the first stint, we
didn't spring for a renewal ($20/mo for Kiwi level, and more for some of the
higher levels).

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simonjgreen
Exactly same experience here, for 2 of their age brackets. Not impressed, like
a lot of these "crates".

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paulchap
Would you (or the parent post) care to explain what's boring about them? Not
everything can appeal to everyone, after all - that would seem to be an
inherent flaw of the crate model. I had a look at their catalogue... A lot of
the Eureka crates seem to be sports-related (a table tennis robot and a golf
putter for instance), and some of them haven't got any moving parts (the golf
putter), which would've certainly made it more attractive to some - but
personally, I don't _really_ have a problem with that. From what I could
gather, they also explain the design choices behind each kit, which makes it
all the more interesting. I'm a bit concerned about the durability, since
neither their tiny printing press nor their pendulum clock look like they'll
make it for longer than a week, but overall, it seems like a fun thing to do
on a rainy afternoon.

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gnicholas
The claw was great. The kaleidoscope was meh and the tree was not fun to build
or play with. And given that they start you out with the great kit and then
get progressively worse, we assumed the trend would continue. For 20 bucks a
month you can buy lots of legos or other interactive toys. The kit items were
also not especially durable. Legos last decades, Kiwi projects lasted 1-3
months before breaking.

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TheSpiceIsLife
MEL Science kits deserves a mention here

[https://melscience.com/](https://melscience.com/)

Currently has a 3 month special. No affiliation other than the relevant young
person seems to derive at least some benefit.

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aga98mtl
It's available in many languages too.

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ObsoleteNerd
My daughter get the Kiwi Crate (gifted subscription from Grandpa), for about a
year now, and it's an absolute highlight of our month. We make a day of it
each time one arrives and put together a little video of completing it to send
back to Grandpa. It has become very special to all of us.

They've created something really amazing with this. Other crates/boxes/etc
exist, but they consistently nail the balance of challenge vs fun and overall
quality. My 5 year old can follow the instructions herself with only minor
prompting from me, and you always get some form of lasting & inspiring object
afterwards rather than just stuff that ends up in the bin like many other
similar programs. Her room and our house are littered with things she's built
herself and that still get use many months later, and they've taught her heaps
about how things work.

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wingspar
This is my experience, the kids love them. My one wish though is that the
finished projects could fit back into the box for storage. Then they could
take them out an ‘use’ them and put them away. I realize that would greatly
limit them scope of projects. The assembled planetarium necessarily is larger
than the box.

Fun stuff.

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asah
Gifted this to my young nephews... parents report they love it and look
forward each month as a family project. COVID made this unexpectedly
awesome...

p.s. no connection to the co, found them from a Google search...

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chriscasano
We renew my son’s subscription every year. He loves the kits and there’s
something new every time. Nicest folks in customer service too.

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xupybd
Why the kiwi name? I'm in NZ and thought there may be some connection.

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bdash
There's no direct connection to New Zealand. The founders visited New Zealand
at some point, and brought back a stuffed kiwi toy for their child. When
naming the company, it crossed their mind and so they went with it[1].

Their offices are in Mountain View. I used to live around the corner from
them.

[1]: [https://www.kiwico.com/blog/2011/06/09/why-the-name-kiwi-
cra...](https://www.kiwico.com/blog/2011/06/09/why-the-name-kiwi-crate/)

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zoomablemind
Coincidentally, the crate/box color is brown-yellow, almost like the kiwi
fruit skin. Quite sturdy boxes, handy as toys organizer when on road trip with
kids. Feeling bad throwing these boxes to trash, but they will add up.

As an idea, maybe they could make use of the surface and print some cut out
details which could be eventually assembled into something (a model of some
kind). Or the very least put some templates on the website to facilitate the
reuse.

Kids would learn that the box should be considered a resource too, not just
the juicy sweet content inside, so to speak, extending the kiwi-fruit
metaphor.

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badrchoubai
My kid brother has received a few boxes through a Summer program at his
school. They’re form the Atlas line and are pretty fun. We did one just this
morning and it’s a good bonding experience.

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acheron
My kids have done the Kiwi crates and the Atlas crates and they've really
liked all of them. I would bet they'd like the Eureka ones when they're older.

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fideloper
We got a three crate subscription. The first crate was disappointing but
subsequent ones were better.

We were surprised when the subscription renewed on us, since we thought we
paid one time for three crates.

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ementi
I love how these encourage learning science while playing but they leave out
low income kids. I wonder if there’s a way for things like these to be
available for low-income kids also?

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paulchap
I think I read about something about a subscription bankrolled by the US
government in an early edition of Make Magazine (2006-ish). Every month you'd
get an item + a booklet of some sort which suggested an experiment. Apparently
you got things like small fossils, and if I remember correctly, a small chunk
of some radioactive material. It got cancelled in the 70s... I'll see if I can
find it again.

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ementi
Oh cool, I wonder if a similar program like this could work now. I’ll try to
find it also.

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paulchap
Found it! Things of Science:
[http://ecg.mit.edu/george/tos/](http://ecg.mit.edu/george/tos/) for the price
of 5$/year.

[edit: looks like I misremembered though, neither the Make article nor the
website mention radioactivity... must have got it mixed up with something like
this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_U-238_Atomic_Energy_La...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_U-238_Atomic_Energy_Laboratory)]

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ementi
Nice! Thanks for digging into that

