Amazon has launched a STEM Club Toy subscription box! This monthly subscription delivers "handpicked, high-quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math toys" to your door for $19.99/month.
This subscription looks like any other shipment from Amazon, with no exterior branding on the box or special insert:
There are 3 age range options:
- 3-4-year-olds (counting, building, and cause and effect)
- 5-7 year-olds (hands-on experiments and explorations of electricity, earth science, and simple math)
- 8-13-year-olds (more complex projects and experiments based on principals of physics, chemistry, and engineering)
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
This is a review of the 5 to 7-year-old age range Amazon STEM Club, $19.99/month.
About This Educational Subscription Box for Kids
The Subscription Box: Amazon STEM Toy Club
The Cost: $19.99 per month
The Products: Each month you will receive a different, age-appropriate STEM toy.
Ships to: U.S. (free shipping)
February's Toy: Play 600 PETs Kit by Robotis Inc
Robotis Play 600 PETs Kit - Retail Value $39.99
We were very excited to receive this kit over the weekend! My kids are much younger than the target age group (3 and 19 months), but a robot is fun for any age and building your own pet is even more exciting! This set is designed for ages 6 and up, but I really found it to be quite adaptable to other ages.
We opened up the toy box (which is sturdy enough to reuse for the pieces) and everything was packaged neatly with the instructions booklet safely on top. The front cover shows you the different animals that instructions are included for along with page numbers, making them easy to locate. With this set you can create a bluebird, cricket, puppy, polar bear, goldfish, whale, or tank. The instructions for the bluebird, cricket and puppy are detailed in the booklet.
There was also a little insert sheet with STEAM contest info on the front and info about their website on the back where you can go to get instructions for the other robots. I was able to download the free app (IOS version) and it linked to this set and several others. They actually include 3D instruction videos and parts lists making it really easy to find everything and follow along. I thought the graphics were really cool and showing my daughter the different things we could make got her even more excited!
The one thing that did not come in the box were the 2 AA batteries needed to operate the motor which is the base for all of the robots. Luckily, I always have plenty on hand (I’m pretty sure I am single-handedly keeping Duracell in business) so I went ahead and installed those before we began. The robots have these little plastic pin pieces to hold them together and the second image above shows you how to use the included remover to remove them when you are ready to disassemble your robot to create a new one. This was a nice touch to me as the little pins stick pretty well once they are in place and this made it much easier.
One thing I really appreciated as a parent was that the side of the box featured a little parts list so that you can see everything in your box. My daughter then helped me take everything out and we laid them on the table so that we could easily find what parts we needed. We decided to make the puppy robot first.
The first page of the dog instructions lists every single piece that you will need for the puppy. There are no words, just pictures and numbers. I think this would be perfect for a 5-7-year-old to follow with little to no supervision but is also designed in a way that you could easily work together with your child for that extra bonding time.
Normally, I am not this patient and probably would have gotten right into it (as some older kids might prefer to do!), but this was a great teaching moment that we really took advantage of. I told my daughter all of the pieces I needed and then we located them and separated them. We were able to talk about colors, shapes and use some counting skills so it was a great reinforcer of those skills.
Each page of the instructions booklet provided pictures of exactly what part you would need and had a diagram of how to put them together. A few times, I found it a little tricky to see exactly what I needed, but overall, they were really well done. My daughter was able to help by handing me the specific pieces while I attached them. A 5-7-year-old could most likely do this by themselves but might need a helping hand for a few of the trickier configurations.
I didn’t time how long it took us to actually assemble the robot, but it really wasn’t long at all. I think having all of the pieces separated out beforehand made a big difference in that. The finished puppy is very cute and the best part is IT MOVES!
There was a small red button on the bottom of the motor that we pressed to turn on (and off) and once we did that, our puppy was able to move back and forth and even started to go in a bit of a circle. Take a look:
It doesn’t move very far, but just enough to be entertaining to a kid. I’m excited to see how the other robots move. In another kit they sell, they even have a dinosaur- so cool!
My daughter was a little upset when we finished because she wanted a girl puppy, but luckily there were a ton of extra pieces that I could easily make a bow out of and attach to the puppy with a little creativity. This was awesome because it showed me how flexible the robots could really be. I think that after building a few of these on their own using the instructions, a 5-7-year-old would really be able to make something creative on their own.
Verdict: I was so impressed with Amazon’s STEM Toy Club this month. I think it was a really great way to incorporate all aspects of STEM into a fun and educational toy. You can even turn it into a STEAM toy because of the flexibility in creating new robots. This was so much fun for us to do together and would be a great activity for older kids as well. The pieces are thick plastic and I think they will last through a lot of robot building. The toy originally retails for $39.99, but we only paid $19.99 for this box (including free shipping) which is an incredible value. I love that this is something we can use over and over again and make it unique each time!
To Wrap Up:
Value Breakdown: The cost of the subscription was $19.99 and we received a toy valued at $39.99. That’s a savings of $20 on this toy!
If you like this box, you might also like: Tinker Crate (ages 9+), Groovy Lab in a Box (ages 8+), Bitsbox (ages 6-12)
Check out all of our Amazon STEM Toy Club reviews, more educational and STEM subscriptions for kids, and all Amazon subscription boxes in our subscription box directory!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wish list!
What do you think of this month's toy from the Amazon STEM Club Toy subscription box?
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