SMARTLAB Toys Aftershock Earthquake Lab Set (53 Piece)

I read mixed reviews about this earthquake simulator but decided to buy a class set. I teach both earth science to 9th grade students (14 years old). We used it as part of a unit where student know about s-, p- and surface waves before the box was opened. We had also looked at material on what makes a building less prone to earthquake damage. Last, I had the students READ the instructions and booklet before putting anything together.This was a hit on numerous levels. They were able to see waves coming in from multiple directions. They were able to make buildings of various heights and different bracing. Some stayed intact while others collapsed and sprayed parts all over the place. Regardless, every group had a good time and was able benefit from the period and a half we spent with the device. I'd recommend that teachers use half a period on one day to find the parts and read the booklet and a full period on the next to let small groups have free play. I put the kits away after the full day of use as its better to quit slightly before they tire of the model than leave ti out too long so its no longer fun.The secret of this lab is having students read the instructions and look at the pieces before they start to put anything together. If you are a parent, your students will enjoy this much more if they are old enough to read the instructions but I would expect them to tire of playing with this fairly quickly.Each of the labs has everything you need except for 3 AA batteries and one of the small jewelers Phillips screwdrivers. I also recommend having a number of freezer thickness plastic seal-able bags to put parts back into at the end of play and for storage. The cardboard packaging is hard to reuse.

Bought this for my son's 7th birthday. Thus far he likes it and has spent quite a bit of time playing with it over the past few days. He did struggle a bit with getting the holes in the floors/ceilings to line up with the pillars (but, the toy says ages 8+, so, can't blame them if the kid is maybe a bit too young), though he seems to have gotten better at building it. Set-up also needed a bit of adult help to begin with. The table's different shake settings seem pretty good - either horizontally, vertically, or both, and you can fairly easily vary what (combination of) earthquake waves you want. My 10yo likes the toy too. It's a bit noisy during the actual earthquake, but plenty of time is spent quietly building, so it's okay overall. It looks like it's sturdy enough to last if you don't abuse it, but we haven't had it long enough yet to really judge how well it'll hold up. The main thing is that the floors/ceilings are thin cardboard with holes punched out, and I think those will wear out... that said, it'd be fairly easy to put some holes in your own cardboard, and you can of course also build structures using other things than provided (like, maybe try building a toothpick bridge and seeing whether that collapses during an earthquake, or, whatever your imagination comes up with, so long as it isn't too insanely heavy and so long as it fits on the platform, which is roughly the size of a sheet of paper).

I purchased this for a educational business to teach about structure & design. Once I had it built and figured out how to load the gears, it worked fine. I haven't built any structures with the provided cardboard/paper building pieces. My sons used LEGO and Mega Bloks to build tall structures to see which would fall first. I'm not sure of the weight capacity but they built a Mega tower about 15 inches with 2x4 block... and it tumbled. Only had a week.

It's not terrible but the cardboard pcs are a big let down. They won't last long if they are built with very often. The earthquake itself is not that impressive and my kids quickly lost interest.

My grandsons and their dad loved this product. They spent a good deal of time figuring out new settings that would withstand the various degrees of shaking. It was interesting to watch them as they rushed through the first two structures not knowing what would happen and then watching them adjust their ideas to remain standing after the quake. We also purchased a lesss expensive and less exciting eartquake kit, but they soon lost interest in it's simplicity .

Bought this product in September for my October 30th earthquake lab. The week before the lab we tested the product (yes, my error), the product didn't work. I had a few other teachers look at it and it appears the gears does not engage. The product is worthless and we substituted with a tray of jello and some shaking. Save your money. I lost mine because of the short return window (30 days).

Its a wonderful gift for a kid, or even an adult. The quake waves not only go up and down but also sideways. Very enjoyable.

Cool concept and partly well thought out. The shake tray is really cool. I love how you can select how intense you want the earth quake to be.Cons, my daughter who absolutely loves to build things couldn't put this together. The columbs don't stay standing so they constantly fall down as you try to put the buildings on top of each other. They need to be able to click in a little better so it's not so frustrating to build.I'm going to have to do my own work so the cardboard buildings and columbs can at least stay together a little better so we can use this.Again, really cool concept but it needs to be modified.