Science Toy Review

This car makes for a great little experiment in solar power. It’s about the size of a standard Matchbox or HotWheel car (but a bit lighter). I bought one a couple of months ago for my 5-year-old son. It was after dark when I got home from work but he didn’t want to wait until the next day to try it out so we found a flashlight and put it on the kitchen counter. I warned him to not get too excited because the flashlight wouldn’t be as powerful as the sun and it might not work. To our amazement, when I pointed the flashlight at the solar panel on top of the car, it took off and quickly drove right off the counter onto the floor.

Another surprise was that this thing is pretty durable. It held up pretty well after several more drops off the counter and a couple of swats from an interested cat. Another testament to this little car’s durability is that after playing with it outside the next day, he lost it somewhere under or around the porch and I only recently found it. I wiped the dirt off it, put it on the deck rail and sure enough, it took off again. I’m sure this toy isn’t designed to sit out in the elements for months, but in our case it didn’t seem to bother it.

As fas as clever science toys go, this is a pretty cool car. You can probably find one online for about $10-12 or Uncle Milton also makes a set of two with a few feet of racing track. If you do pick one up, do know that they require a pretty sunny day and a smooth surface to really work. If it’s a bit overcast it’ll be a fairly boring toy. Overall recommendation- pretty cool. You can buy the Uncle Milton Solar Racer at Atomic Elephant Toy or anywhere cool science toys are sold.