User Reviews Send this to a friend
Smithsonian Motor-Works
 
Manufacturer: NSI
Customer Rating:
 
List Price: $36.99
Sale Price: $34.02
Availibility: Usually ships in 2-3 business days
Buy Now
 

Product Description
Build an authentic, working engine and learn the mechanics of how motors work. Valves rock, spark plugs fire and pistons drive the crankshaftInternal and external moving partsOver 100 working partsBattery-operated moving engine Includes screwdriver and instructionsReady, set, build your own engine!Safety warning: This product contains small parts that may present a choking hazard for young children.

Product Details
  • Watch the spark plugs fire
  • Watch the valves open and close
  • See how the pistons fire
  • Watch the belts and fan turn
  • Detailed instructions

Video Reviews
No video reviews found for this product.

Customer Reviews
Wonderful model, puzzling flaws
 
Review Date: May 9, 2010
Reviewer: Dan P. Ellis,
After reading the reviews, I ordered this with some trepidation, but I really wanted an educational model of an engine. I built it with my 8 year old son in a few hours, although I ended up doing more of the work. I found the pieces to be pretty good, and the process of screwing the screws into the plastic was a good compromise between ease of assembly and robustness of the resulting joins (but having a good-quality screwdriver of the right, small, size makes a big difference). The directions were adequate but a bit hard to follow at some points - it certainly helps if you have some idea how a real engine works so you can see what it's trying to do.

The puzzling part is that when we got it running, it was clear that the valve opening and spark firing made no sense. As reported elsewhere, it turned out we needed to resolder the wires to the electric motor in the opposite polarity to make the engine spin in the correct direction (fan spins clockwise when viewed from in front). That made the valve sequence more plausible, but I had to rotate the distributor cap far beyond the suggested range to make the spark plugs fire at close to the correct time. And after reversing the electric motor wires, the firing order became 1-2-4-3 (instead of the expected 1-3-4-2). However, this is a valid firing sequence, and it appears to be consistent with the cam assembly specified in the instructions. Perhaps the model was designed for a non-north-American firing order, but then someone decided to reverse the electric motor to get the "expected" firing order (at the cost of many other aspects)?

On balance, I still think the model is really good, and I probably learned more as a result of trying to puzzle out why it wasn't behaving the way I expected. However, I worry that kids all over the country will build it as specified, then spend ages trying to make sense of a model that, until modified, doesn't properly reflect 4-stroke operation.
Very Educational!!
 
Review Date: February 20, 2010
Reviewer: Julio Cesar, AL USA
I lerned a lot making the assembly and showing it to my coworkers! They also surprised how this toy was working by itselfSmithsonian Motor-Works like a real machine!
Full scale Engine Builder
 
Review Date: March 18, 2010
Reviewer: P. A. S. Lust, Santa Barbara, CA
My daughter needed this for a school project and I build full scale engines for a living. This was fun....BUT not for an EIGHT YEAR OLD to do! Predrilling many holes and tapping the casting for the screws was time consuming(really help overall quality). Using a hardened tip phillips screwdriver is A MUST! Also, using different types of lubricants really helped. Leave out the head gasket and you can see the funtioning motor much better, better lighting too.
Camshaft and rocker illustrations and the assembly directions don't agree. (I also write some auto-tech literature). Obviously written by someone who is non automotive technical.
Make sure mating surfaces are sanded smooth and lubricated. Bundle the wiring and paint some of the colored parts... it makes it look much nicer. GOOD LUCK!!!!
Great concept, problematic execution
 
Review Date: March 3, 2010
Reviewer: K. D. Hanka,
This model is a phenomenal way to learn about how reciprocating engines work. Most of it is transparent and the parts are faithful replicas of a real engine.

Alas, there are bugs in the execution. Many of the screws require far more force than a kid can apply, and will strip out if insufficient force is applied. The printed instructions contain errors on steps 18 and 19 (camshaft assembly) and in any case do not contain enough information. Consequently, frustrating trial and error was required to achieve proper cam timing. That said, if the camshaft timing is wrong, it will not be obvious (or important) unless one is specifically checking the operation of each valve and spark plug relative to the crankshaft.

They skimped a bit on QA too -- on our kit the motor polarity was reversed (again, not apparent to a kid) and so required minor re-soldering.

Even so, with a mechanically inclined parent handy in order to overcome these problems, the kit is the very best way for a kid to fully understand how engines are built.
Motor-(Doesn't)-Work
 
Review Date: March 6, 2010
Reviewer: E. Karplus,
This was a gift from a friend, their intentions were good but the gift turned out to be a big disappointment. The toy has tremendous potential as it does show many of the features of an internal combustion engine, and has a nice tutorial in the manual. My son had no trouble following the instructions, although there were errors in the manual about the camshaft alignment we were able to figure out the correct way to set things up. However, from the beginning it was clear that this toy was made from very poor plastic castings and was not likely to run smoothly. In spite of multiple efforts to fix the poorly made parts and make them work properly, the motor still jammed every time it went around and after only a few turns the electric motor started to overheat and burn out. So the net result was a pretty big disappointment, now we have a plastic model that doesn't run unless you crank it by hand. I build electrical and mechanical components for scientific research equipment and feel confident that it was not for lack of skill or understanding that we had trouble with this toy, I would not recommend it to anyone who expects to have a running model when they are done working on it for a few hours! The box says 'Smithsonian Institution' but in the fine print says it was from National Science Industries, Ltd. and directs you to [...]. We have not been able to get to that web site.

Tagged with: •

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!