As a kid I used to make up those kits to create airfix planes, ships, tanks. The glue used to get everywhere.
Now some clever person has created a special one off snap-together plastic kit that can be made up by children from 8 to 84. Once snapped together to create the finished object it can be kept as the object or can be unsnapped and restored to kit form. And what of the finished object. It is not a model of something at all but a real working thing which is designed for a child - or adult to use. The whole idea of creating the kit and using it to make the real working is to create a process that is very child friendly, interesting and - most important - makes it very very cheap to buy. Of course the one catch is it is not British but designed by American Educators. But don't worry about that - this lot want to send their product out to everyone in the world - and the more they send the happier they are. The cost of the product is in single figures in pounds. Buy one and postage doubles this figure. Buy more than one and postage starts to go down. In Australia some states are buying in 100s and 1,000s for their schools. Others like you and me buy one for themselves and some for their children - or grandchildren - as a stocking filler for Christmas. As more people acquire the kits the more uses they find for the finished article. It's very small and light and so ideal to fit in the corner on a boat or in the car, or in the campers sack for example. At this point I had better mention what the kit is about and why it has been created. It so happens that, just as last year was the International year of the potato so this year is the International year of astronomy. This IYA is endorsed by the UN, Unesco and many other high brow organisations - though our government is strangely quiet on the subject and even that MP who goes on about Meteors - when not dating another young bird - says little. Anyway with IYA in mind, various groups in the US got together and worked out that one very good way to sell science to the people was to create a DIY telescope kit as cheaply as possible. A kit that, when put together must really work as a telescope and give good images. The result of their efforts is little short of amazing. You can read all about it on www.galileoscope.org . This site shows views taken through the scope - a scope with mostly plastic lenses - that show as good detail as scopes costing 10 times as much. Having said that the scope - which is based roughly on what Galileo had would have had that gent selling his soul to get one! The site also tells you how to order if you want one for you and/or your relatives or your school or... As has been said one costs about £20 but if you get 5 (say) the price is down to £15. The only problem with this little gem of a plastic kit is that to get one you need to order soon and if you think you might want more later - order them now. If demand drops then they will wind up production and, whatever happens the IYA ends in December at which point the scope kit may cease to be available. Currently there is a wait of 4-6 weeks to get the scopes after ordering. If you google galileoscope you can watch a Youtube film of one of the designers putting one together. The finished scope fits on a photographic tripod - and needs one when you are using high magnification for studying the craters on the moon - or the wallpaper of the house opposite.
