Great news! A buyer has been found for the kit business, and kits are now available again!
Please visit the The Home Scientist for the latest information about the kits.
Great news! A buyer has been found for the kit business, and kits are now available again!
Please visit the The Home Scientist for the latest information about the kits.
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Slashdot has a question about how to learn chemistry if a child is being home schooled.
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/06/07/1321228/ask-slashdot-teaching-chemistry-to-home-schooled-kids
Might be right up your alley!
I mentioned your books…
Thanks!
Would you ship the FK01 Forensic Science Kit to the uk?
Have the book which is great but need the kit!
Sorry, but we can’t. We ship kits only to the 50 US states. For a while, we were shipping kits to Canada, but even that ended up being far too expensive and too much of a hassle. The problem is international dangerous-goods shipping regulations. When we first started shipping science kits, I got a query from someone in the UK. When I checked with UPS and FedEx, the lowest quote was for more than $400 in shipping charges.
My advice is to check the Internet for forensics vendors in the UK. They should carry most or all of the specialized solutions you need, and the shipping charges should be minimal relative to those from the US.
I seem to recall that you do some business with Canadians these days, but your response above says is not the case.. Since this page is easy to find you might want to post the current situation, assuming it really has changed.
Yeah, you’re right, I should update this.
I’m of two minds about this. We actually lose money on the chemistry and biology kits we ship to Canada (we can’t ship forensic kits internationally), but I am a Canadaphile and want to help homeschoolers in Canada, who have a pretty tough time of it, particularly getting science supplies.
USPS made it even worse a few months ago. It used to be that for a parcel of a given weight, USPS charged the same amount from any US address to any Canadian address. Now they charge based on the US origin post office. Someone in Miami (where international shipments go for dispatch) actually pays less than they used to. Someone in Hawaii pays much, much more, in some cases three times what it used to cost. We’re paying not quite double what we were paying a few month ago. A kit that then cost $37 in actual postage is now about $60. I used to charge a Canadian shipping surcharge of $44, with the extra $7 covering things like packing materials, the credit card surcharge that Paypal charges me on international transactions, and so on. Not counting the extra time it took, we were about breaking even on Canadian shipments. I could probably boost the surcharge to $70 or $75, but I hate to do that. A lot of homeschoolers are on very tight budgets.
RBT, do you have a suggestion for which of your science kits elementary school kids would get the most out of? Two eight-year-old girls, specifically. They both get As in 3rd grade science, but that’s a far cry from having the background expected of home-schooled high schoolers. They’d be doing all of the labs under my supervision, of course, but I’m not confident that I’d be able to explain all relevant scientific principles to 3rd graders. I’m concerned that they’d simply be following the step-by-steps without understanding why they were doing them or why the observed effects happened.
Related: Will the safety goggles you stock fit eight-year-olds or should I obtain smaller pairs elsewhere?
Related: You’d previously mentioned making science books and kits for small fry. Do you have anything resembling an estimate for release? I realize you’ve been just a bit busy lately.
Unfortunately, by federal law we cannot sell science kits intended for use by kids who are not at least 13 years old. (Well, we could, but that would involve spending literally hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on testing every batch of every component for lead and other heavy metals. For example, if we wanted to include an ordinary pencil or cotton ball, we’d have to have each batch of those we ordered tested individually. We couldn’t just go down to Office Depot and buy a gross of pencils, even though those have already been tested; we’d have to have them tested again.)
None of our kits are appropriate for 8 year olds, even extremely bright ones. We focus on age 13 and above, and even for them our kits are extremely rigorous.
I applaud your intention to get your kids into science early, and I wish there were something we could do to help, but we simply can’t risk the heavy federal penalties (including jail time).
Huh. OK, thanks.
Plan B: Arduino or RaspberryPi project kits. And in a few years revert to Plan A.
“Plan B: Arduino or RaspberryPi project kits. And in a few years revert to Plan A.”
You may not be aware of the new Executive Order that the President is about to sign on that; Arduino and RaspberryPI kits for children under twelve must be thoroughly tested and approved by the FDA, EPA and Homeland Security.
Just a heads up, fellas…
Just to be specific (and not in the least bit sarcastic):
– The small parts are a choking hazard so “Plan B” will not fly with the FDA.
– There is a trace amount of lead in the circuit boards so “Plan B” will not fly with the EPA.
– Homeland inSecurities part is that “Plan B” could be used to make a “clock” which if you are of a certain ethnic heritage will get you a trip to the White House and a bunch of swag from Micro$oft. Otherwise you are a terrorist and subject to an IRS audit and a visit by some guys in combat gear.
Darn it all to hell; I thought I was being pretty funny and then Mr. DadCooks just kicked it up by a geometric level, nicely played, sir!
Thanks @OFD, I know you could have done as well or better.
Well, it’s just good that between the two of us, we are able to educate Mr. SteveF and Mr. RBT on the Law, as exemplified by our Nay-shun’s top leadership.
Great minds think alike, battle tested 😉