Build Your Own Binoculars From Buildyourownkits.com Review
THIS ITEM WAS GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW. ALL THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE THE REVIEWER'S OWN.
Reviewed by Amanda Hayes
Being a mum of a nine year old boy I am constantly on the look out for fun and interesting birthday gifts for the 8+ age group. I love an educational STEM based gift, but they are not always the most appealing to the recipient, so I was really pleased to be able to review an item from the range of craft based toys from www.buildyourownkits.com.
All of the kits use sustainable cardboard, have minimal plastics and use eco-friendly 100% recyclable packaging so I was impressed before I had even received the product. Their website is absolutely fantastic, every item sold in the shop has its own support page where you can download the instructions, watch a video of how to build it, or order a spare part if one goes missing, as they do sometimes! Buying a gift from the site is made super easy by the clear signage on each toy. Not only does it have the price, it has a clear, bright colour coded system to show how many pieces are in the kit, the time it will take to make, the skill level required to build it and the recommended age level eg 8+, it really does making buying a gift easy.
I was sent the build your own binoculars, RRP £19.99, and they came in plain brown cardboard box, sheathed with a bright coloured sleeve with all the information on the product. It looked fun and appealing and my son was really keen to get it open. Inside there is a multi page instruction leaflet which is incredibly clear and easy to follow, having received a couple of craft items for Christmas that even I had given up with, this was a dream. On the front page it has a scan code so you can easily watch the build video if you prefer. On the back page it has a really interesting section on how your binoculars work and also a section on how to use them.
Underneath the instruction are the cardboard parts, made from thick, tabbed colourful printed cardboard, they don’t need any glue to hold them together, a major blessing as our last try at a kit just resulted in a wet soggy mess! I was impressed at the quality of the parts, they weren’t at all flimsy or easy to break, even though you had to press the parts out of the backing. All the parts are clearly labelled and matched the diagrams on the instruction leaflet. There are four lenses included in the kit and these are in a small brown envelope to keep them together. The website shows a time of an hour to build, and although instructions are easy it has 71 separate parts, so the timing is about right. Obviously after that you can have many more hours of fun using them, perfect for getting children away from the screen and outside looking for wildlife.
We found these kits really inspiring, fun to build and fun to use, colourful and eco-friendly. With the great selection of toys on www.buildyourownkits.com I have now found my go to website for children’s gifts for years to come.
Rating: Highly Recommended 5 out of 5
This product can be purchased from Build Your Own Kits here.