Have been doing a variety of projects with my daughter this summer. It has been a great way to be creative and for us to both learn something new. Picked this project as I have been playing around with e-textiles and have come across references to electric paint. So one day when we were at Ada's Technical Books and Cafe here in Seattle I gave in to the request of purchasing Voltage Village Glowing House Set by Bare Conductive.
It is a project recommended for 12 and up. My daughter has just turned 10, she loved the colouring of house parts and the building of the actual paper house. Not so keen on the waiting for electric paint to dry between steps. The instructions were fine if you have some knowledge of circuits. Could of done with a few more details of how things worked as she was confused a bit during assembly, she definitely could not of done this project by herself. But with a little patience and perseverance on my part we got both houses built.
I was very pleased with how the electric paint worked and will definitely be experimenting further. A very nice way to experiment with small circuit/electrical projects without learning the art of GOOD soldering. Soldering is something I should practice a bit more - which is on my roster for this fall.
Here is a picture of our finished project. It comes with a variety of bushes and trees to cut out. So you can play around a bit with landscaping your homes.
Lights on in the front hall. Works quite nicely and the necessary batteries are included in the kit which is a nice bonus in my opinion. So often we go to start a project and then realize we don't have the appropriate battery in the house. A modification I would make if doing another one would be to use heavier paper for the roof or do the circuits on a piece which lined the roof. It would be cooler if you couldn't see the outlines of paint and lights on the actual roof.
It was a fun project and took about 3 hours in total if you include drying time for paint. Was a bit of an investment as they retail for approx. $40. I have some paint left which I could use for another small project but other then that everything was used in the kit. Of course my daughter thinks we should add more houses so we could have a whole village. I am trying to think of a similar build I could do to use in a variety of lego buildings. Cause you know lego buildings really need a little lego electrician to come wire them up to make them just that much cooler.
