Light and Optics

SmartLabs offers a wide range of light and optics equipment designed for physics classrooms and laboratory experiments. These tools help students explore the behaviour of light through reflection, refraction, diffraction, and colour separation.

Our collection includes optical benches, ray boxes, lenses, prisms, mirrors, and filters for demonstrations and practical investigations. Each product supports CAPS-aligned physics teaching and helps students visualise abstract optical principles.

Teaching the topic rather than buying the apparatus? Our Grade 8 visible light practicals cover the spectrum, colour, shadows and the eye, with five practicals and a free worksheet and memo. For the senior grades, the mirror practical and the glass block practical both run as measurements with a protractor.

SmartLabs supplies affordable light and optics equipment to schools, universities, and laboratories across South Africa to support engaging and practical optics education.



A ray box casting a spectrum beside a case of lenses

What is an optical experiment kit?

An optical experiment kit brings together the apparatus used to explore the behaviour of light through reflection, refraction, diffraction and colour separation. These tools make abstract optical principles visible and measurable.

SmartLabs stocks ray boxes, glass prisms, a full lens set of biconvex and biconcave lenses, and laser pens. Every item is chosen to support CAPS-aligned Physical Sciences lessons on light and optics.

Common uses of an optical experiment kit in the classroom

From ray box light paths to prism dispersion and lens refraction.

  • A ray box projecting three parallel light beams across a bench

    Ray Box Light Paths

    A mirrored ray box projects clear parallel light beams across the bench, letting learners trace and measure how light travels, reflects and bends.

  • A glass prism splitting a light beam into a spectrum on card

    Prism Light Dispersion

    A glass prism splits white light into a visible rainbow spectrum, the classic demonstration of how different wavelengths of light refract by different amounts.

  • A convex and a concave glass lens standing upright on a bench

    Lens Set Refraction

    A lens set of biconvex and biconcave glass lenses shows learners how curved surfaces converge or diverge light, the foundation of how optical instruments work.

  • A laser pointer casting a red beam across a wooden bench

    Laser Pen Straight-Line Propagation

    A laser pen produces a thin, visible beam that clearly demonstrates how light travels in straight lines, useful for reflection and refraction measurements.