Product review by Lisa Barthuly, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC, April 2007

“Brinsea brings us the R-Com Digital Egg Incubator and accompanying EZ Scope. This has been a fun learning tool for our family. We are new to hatching chicks in an incubator, and the R-Com is so easy to use!

The R-Com will handle three eggs at a time and comes with an easy-to-follow instruction guide to make this process simple and enjoyable! The children love waiting and watching for chicks to break through. The digital readout and incubator itself made this a no-brainer. Just add water, program the digital readout for the type of eggs you are incubating, and the R-Com will control the temperature, calculate the timing, and even turn (rotate) the eggs for you! The EZ Scope lets you inspect eggs and watch your fertilized eggs mature--the ultimate learning experience for the whole family. The box that the R-Com is shipped in doubles as a mini coop for the new chicks!

Now, this would not be for the high-production chicken farmer since it is only good for three eggs at a time. But it has been so much fun for us small-scale chicken farmers! Fantastic learning tool! Highly recommended!”

Comments from the evaluators of the 2007 Teacher’s Choice Award for the Family in answer to the following questions:

What aspects of the product did you like the most?

“It was incredibly easy. One never has to touch the eggs after they’re set in the incubator. The beeps remind you when the eggs are turning and the kids liked running over to see them turn.”
“This incubator was so very easy to use. It dis all the work for me. I was new to this experience and was thrilled to actually have a chick hatch. It was versatile if I chose at another time to incubate another type of bird. It disn;t take up much room and was clean to use.”

Did you find the product interesting or motivating for children?

“This product is attractive for its incredible ease of use. So clean and tidy. Even though all the eggs didn’t hatch I would try it again and be sure to candle the eggs for the first week or so of development to make sure I had viable eggs. My duck eggs all came from the same pond.”
“The hatching of 3 of 3 healthy chicks blew ME away and my daughters were ecstatic. Children can pay as much or as little attention as they like. The digital programming is compelling.”
“The incubator allowed the eggs to be viewed at all times. Children can watch and it was immediately evident when a chick hatched.”

What skills could the product teach children?

“The biology of a duck’s life cycle. How humans can recreate the natural conditions of the duck’s incubation. There’s learning even in the eggs that fail to hatch – that’s life (we don’t all make it). Then there’s care and feeding of a fragile new born with its associated learning.”
“The incubator is a nice family experience, children learn how to care for a living thing. It also teaches them about the life cycle of the chicken and other birds. It can also teach patience!!!”
“Scientific inquiry learning, hypothesizing, journal writing, displaying and interpreting data, life cycles, species variations, technology.”

Would you recommend parents buy or use this product with children?

“Absolutely yes! My daughters loved it almost as much as I did. It’s so easy to use it makes children (and me) want to learn more about embryology.”
“I think it’s best for preschoolers through third graders. It was an easy way to see how eggs incubate and hatch!”
“I would definitely recommend this type of incubator for use in the home or even the classroom. It is important for children to experience many different things including these naturally occurring events. They can’t respect and care for their world if they don’t have any connection to it or don’t understand it.”

The R-Com mini was one of the winners of the 2007 Teacher’s Choice Award for the Family.
We’re also proud to announce that the R-Com mini & scope package is one of the winners of the 2008 Teacher’s Choice Award for the Classroom.

Comments from the evaluators of the 2008 Teacher’s Choice Award for the Classroom in answer to the following questions:

What aspects of this product did you like most?

I liked the idea of the product being completely digital. It was so easy to run this incubator compared to the old style ones. Other than plugging it in, the only thing we had to do was add water once a week. The electronic aspect of this product was great. The scope was a little harder to use. We had darker-shelled eggs, and the light wasn’t strong enough to get through The scope was easy for the students to use, though.

I really liked how easy it was to incubate eggs with this product. I have used a Styrofoam incubator in the past, and this product was MUCH less stressful to use. I didn't have to constantly be checking the temperature and humidity. The incubator did that all automatically. It let me know when I needed to add more water and it even stopped turning the eggs on the correct day. It was just super easy to use.
I love that this product turns the eggs for you.
I really enjoyed this product. My children did as well. They were very excited about learning the life cycle of a chicken and how the incubator allowed the chicks in the egg to grow.
I really liked the updated look of the incubator. It wasn't so boxy or dated looking.

How would this product need to improve to better support your curriculum?

I feel that the unit could contain more egg holders. We get most of our eggs donated, and three eggs may not produce a high probability of hatching. Besides, if only one chick hatches wouldn’t have a very good chance of survival by itself.

The idea of the microscope is such a neat idea. The eggs used for the hatch were brown eggs and it was not possible to see into them. This is probably more of a problem with the eggs that were used than with the scope, but it was disappointing that the children were unable to see inside the eggs.

I do not think this product needs to improve for our curriculum. It goes right along with our curriculum. I really liked it the way it was!

How did you make use of the product, or integrate it into your lesson plans?

We used the product during our life cycles unit in science. We talked about animals (birds) and the stages of its life. This was an actual hands-on experience. The counter on the product helps the students count down the days until the hatch, the thermometer helped them use a unit of measurement, and the anticipation of the wait for them to hatch was great.
We do an animal unit each spring, and when we talk about birds we incubate either chicken or duck eggs. This year we were able to use the new incubator because it arrived as we were doing this unit.

What skills did your students learn from this product?

A hands-on experience of the life cycle of a bird starting out as an egg and then being born. It also helped the students how important it was to feed and water the chicks after being born.
The children are able to see first hand how a bird is able to hatch from an egg. They experience exactly how long the egg must be kept warm, they are able to watch the chick as it pecks its way out of the egg, and they are able to watch the chick after it hatches. They learn first hand about the life cycle. They learn to handle the baby chicks after they hatch. It is just a really neat science lesson.My students learned what happens to the chicken when the hen lays an egg and what it takes for the chick in the egg to stay alive.

If funds were available, would you recommend this product to another teacher at the appropriate grade/age level? Please explain why or why not.

I would definitely recommend this product. Although, I really would like to see it with more holders as I stated earlier. After using other models, this seems to be much more accurate and give much better results.I would certainly recommend this product. It makes the incubation process so much simpler on the teacher. I didn't have to be in my classroom extra time to get the temperature just right or turn the eggs. I also was able to attain a much better percentage of eggs that hatched. Usually I only get about 50% to hatch. With this incubator, I had 2 out of 3 hatch.
I would definitely recommend it. It is so much easier to use than ones that I have use in the past and seems to be a little more fool proof. I would definitely recommend this product to other teachers because it is a great way for the students to get to observe the life cycle process.
Yes, definitely. The students will benefit greatly from it.