DIY Foldable Paper Smartphone Mini Spectrometer Analyze and Catalog Materials

This was a gift for our son-in-law who is a professor of spectroscopy - from what our daughter told us it was like a kid with a new favorite toy at Christmas. Never mind the million dollar lab down the hall from his office, he and his research staff got a kick out of seeing what they could do with with this kit.

Very cheap, fragile, awkward device. I had a spectrometer as a kid in the 1950s, and it was made of aluminum, with lenses and several parts, cost $3 and served me well to see the Fraunhofer lines. What happened to quality instruments for young scientists?

no specific comments

Built four of these from the online 'blueprint' at Public Labs' website. Results are terrible. Only works with very bright lights: ex - 15w CFL from a few ft, to achieve the images in the other reviews, here. This is an outrageous price for this item - this kit offers NOTHING of worth but a preprinted card. Far better plans are available for free (I built a superior device from a toothpaste box and CD). A $5 Eisco spectrascope will produce incomparably better results.For $2, this would be a cool experiment for understanding diffraction and spectra, but is useless for anything more than demonstration. For $10+ its a total waste of money. Build one from online plans...DO NOT BUY

Works well. Needs brighter lights. I am using this with a Nexus 6. great for showing what a spectrograph does for kids and adults.

great product....worked as expected

The idea might be a good one, but the execution is pretty bad. You get delivered the kit and then need to ensemble it. It is tricky if you have never done it before, the instructions are in mini-print and there are no instruction videos. I thought I did a good job, but never got it working. What went wrong? No idea as there is also no help available.

Excellent