Project Mc2 Circuit Beats: Children's Science With Fruit!

My children have all loved Science, and I'm very fond of the Project Mc2 doll range. Based on the TV Show of the same name and promoting scientific experiments (especially to girls), one of their most exciting experiment kits is Circuit Beats - which allows you to discover the electrical conductivity of everyday stuff and play music at the same time...

The packaging on this was quite hefty and took a while to undo, but once into the recommended age 6+ set, you find the Circuit Beats board, cat ear headband which serves as the speaker, 7 wired alligator clip electrical contacts, a sheet of stickers to decorate, instruction leaflet and the 3 x AAA batteries that are needed to power Circuit Beats.

The circuit board console has a choice of 5 available sounds -  - piano, guitar, drums, cat 'meow' or record your own. The entire set is really colourful and cute and immediately attractive to any child. My boys knew it must do something special.

Circuit Beats takes very little time to set up and work out. Insert the batteries, plug in the wired contacts and attach the crocodile clips to anything which conducts electricity. Select which sound you want to make, place one finger on the grounding clip and when you touch your conductive material you will safely complete the circuit and hear your chosen sound.

We used slices of fruit as our conductive material, but my boys were just as interested in the fact they themselves are conductive anyway! The circuit can be completed just by touching the metal contacts with your fingers. I'm unsure how much he'll appreciate this photo when he's older...

The Circuit Beats board gives you 6 different notes/tones, so by using all of the contacts you can play a proper tune and really impress, or just belt out a rocking drum beat or menagerie of cats.

Project Mc2 Circuit Beats is recommended for age 6+, but would be interesting and suitable for younger children of 3+ with adult supervision. My 6 year old adores it. My almost 8 year old was interested initially, but once he understood how a circuit works wandered off and, unlike his brother, wasn't keen to try to play a recognisable song.

Circuit Beats is an excellent and clear tool for showing a child how electrical circuits work, and gives a really safe environment for experimenting to find out what conducts electricity. The novelty factor will wear off quickly for some of your older children, whereas others will spend hours practising their version of Frere Jacques as played by howling cats. We love it.

Circuit Beats from Project Mc2 is available now in all good toy stores instore and online with an rrp of £29.99. Dolls with experiments cost around £24.99. Keep up to date with Project Mc2 on their Facebook page...

If music isn't your thing, we've also reviewed the Project Mc2 Adrienne Atoms with Volcano Experiment.

We were sent our Mc2 Circuit Beats set for review.