Manipulating models and building molecules in 3-dimensional space is the
very best way for students to develop their spatial skills (one of the
key issues in organic courses) and to get a real sense of how molecules
are put together. To that end, we have done everything we could to make
a model set available for students at a price they can afford. The model
kit is particularly customized to the Solomons Fryhle text, but can be
used with any of Wiley's organic texts.
Manufactured by Darling Model Kits, this custom kit was designed by
T.W.Graham Solomons. The kit consists of Darling's basic Molecular
Vision kit with a few additional pieces, so that p orbitals could be
shown in molecules like acetylene. This customized kit also has pieces
that allow linear geometry for the sigma bonds of alkynes while also
having orthogonal connections at each atom for the associated p
orbitals. By attaching balls of the right colors it is possible to show
the lobes of the p orbitals that make up the pi bonds in an alkyne. Ball
colors can be matched symmetrically to show in-phase orbital overlap, or
antisymmetrically to show an antibonding state. Use of colored balls
with the appropriate framework geometry is a very nice feature of the
Darling model set. Pieces from Darling's inorganic model set and are
used for octahedral geometry.
