Constructive PlaythingsLight Crystal Prism, Rainbow Maker for Kids, Science Class, Ages 8+

I was looking for an acrylic prism to teach my son about light and rainbows. This is simple and does the job with natural sunlight.

I’m not sure why some people give this such bad reviews! Does exactly what it sets out to do—pure and simple. My daughter loves rainbows and I wanted to show her how she can create one anytime she wants. Good purchase and I’m happy with the product.

I bought this prism for my grandson's 2nd birthday because he always marvels at the rainbows produced by the beveled glass top on our dining room buffet when the sun strikes it just right. For the most dramatic spectrums from this prism, I use sunlight streaming through a window and project the spectrum on the floor or the opposing wall. Indoors works best when the spectrum is projected onto a wall in the shadows. Outdoors, the spectrum is attenuated by the brilliant sunlight. You have to exercise care (as with all prisms) to orient the prism at just the right angle to disperse the colors for maximum effect. If you have the incorrect orientation, you may just get a reflection from the prism with no colors, or a white shape with color fringes at the edges. When you achieve the correct orientation, however, the spectrum is dramatic and brilliant. My grandson is mesmerized by it. Highly recommended to stimulate the scientific curiosity of children.

Bought this because my coworker and I have this thing about lasers. Stuck this on the desk of my coworker and sniped it right on the point with a laser from 100 feet away. His impersonation of a cat catching a laser pointer was priceless. This little prism split the laser into 3 distinct beams and bounced them all around his cubicle. That alone was worth the purchase price. NOW, when the two of us took our lasers - we have a few of them and in different colors - and bounced them through the prism at different angles... A science experiment EINSTEIN would be proud off - simply magical. Do this and then look down the top of the prism - my life will never be the same again. :) Oh, and it splits white light into rainbows too.

I bought this prism as a gift for my 4 yr old grand daughter. She loves rainbows. At 4 o'clock everyday a cut piece of glass on our patio casts a rainbow onto a wall on our family room. When she is here she squeels "It's rainbow time". Perfect gift...right? Not so fast. You have to hold the prism just right to get any type of light diffusion. It was difficult for me and impossible for her. Worst gift ever. If you want to buy a prism for your kids this is not the one you want. You get what you pay for. I guess if I want a prism that actually casts a rainbow I will have to pay more money and get a higher grade prism. I read past reviews before buying this and saw the same problem over and over. I thought I was more clever than these other people and could get it to work. Wrong. I should have believed the other poor reviews and saved my money.

I needed a simple prism for a photography experiment, but when I came to Amazon I found pages of negative reviews on just about all of them. In the end I settled on this one, but I'm now convinced that any of them would have worked just fine. If you shine a collimated beam of full-spectrum light (sunlight works great!) at this prism you can see the dispersion light into its various wavelengths (rainbow).Unfortunately Amazon is getting a growing number of negatives reviews on products due to user error/ignorance. Instead of learn something most are quick to pick up the laptop and vent their frustration. Ironically in this case, the product is a teaching device where the user error is exactly what the device is intended to teach. If it's not working then you're doing something wrong and it's a great time to learn about collimation, light spectrum, and incident angle.Yes, this one is acrylic, no it doesn't matter. The light transmission of acrylic is far greater than that of the low quality glass you would get for a prism this cheap. This one is hand-sized, big enough to disperse a decent size beam, wide enough to be stable to stand on end. My only gripe is that the edges are filed to prevent chipping but that only effected the ascetics of my photographs, not the function of the prism. For most users the filing is probably a good thing.[...]

My daughter had been learning about prisms at school and wanted one to do some "experiments" at home. I don't know if it's the quality of the plastic/glass or something else but it doesn't produce a very vivid rainbow. I've seen others that really make the colors pop. I'm no expert so I don't know the exact reason for this and maybe it's not this product's fault, but it was a bit underwhelming for her.

I wake up on sunny Saturday mornings to the sounds of squealing happiness. When I go to our living room, I find my kids dancing around and trying to “catch” rainbows. This prism was a gift from Santa tucked in my middle child’s stocking. I put it on a south-facing windowsill in our living room and consistently get rainbows every sunny day. I don’t understand why there are negative reviews on this product. It works absolutely perfectly. Maybe there’s Christmas magic with ours and that’s why ours works and theirs doesn’t.