Klutz LEGO Crazy Action Contraptions Craft Kit

Wow, what a great set of Legos. We used these with our Jr. FIRST Lego League team (consisting of 3rd and 4th graders) to give the kids something hands-on to do at every meeting. 16 great projects, 14 of which have moving parts to teach the kids about Simple Machines with, and many of which allow some teamwork/competition with the final item. All the projects can be built between 10-40 minutes each with minimal help from parents. The most complex ones were challenging for the 4th graders to build. Great illustrations and step-by-step instructions. The parts are thoughtfully colored so, for example, when you are stacking bricks together you can tell where the 1x8 brick goes (which is red) compared to the 1x6 brick (which is black). The coloring also allows quick checking by parents to diagnose assembly problems when something doesn't work.There is a lot of background/support information, such as how to pull small, sticky parts apart, how to thread the rubber bands easily, a Lego geometry tutorial, troubleshooting steps for each project, etc. While nice to have, I couldn't get the kids to read any of it -- all they wanted to do was build.The "includes every brick, gear & axle" should be taken with a small grain of salt. While it is true that every Lego piece you need is included, the Tennessee Time-Killer requires a piece of dental floss (or similar thin string), and the Zipline Runners require a string to run on. Minor, but I think should be mentioned.Complaints/improvements: 1) larger storage area to put the pieces back in when done would be nice as they were packed in pretty good; 2) extra rubber bands, as we broke a number when the kids wound things up too tight (e.g., racing the Supercharged Speedsters).

This was a fun set to play with my four year old son. It's a great introduction to simple mechanics, and there's a good variety of builds to keep things interesting. My favorite was the "Tennessee time-killer", and the rubber band cars were fun too. We built the models from the instructions. In many cases the strength of items seemed a bit weak. For example the telescoping grabber has two sections joined by little 1/3 height bricks that see a fair bit of force and it would often pull apart when being used. Or the Tennessee time-killer had the tendency to wobble when operating. My guess this was to keep the parts count (cost) down, but if you have even a modest bin of legos, you likely have everything you need to bolster their deigns. Personally I saw it as a good chance to teach how to iterate on a design to improve its flaws, others may not enjoy that aspect though. Either way I thought this set was really neat and a nice departure from what you usually find in a lego set.

My 8 and 12 year olds really enjoyed this set. I think they prefer the LEGO Klutz Gadgets set better, but this one was still great! I highly recommend both. Some of the projects in this set were a little tricky for my 8 year old to do by himself, but with a little guidance and some perseverance, he was able to make them. The battle top spinner was my personal favorite project. It took a few tries for us to get it to work properly, but once we figured it out, the concept was really neat. My only complaint is that I wish the parts storage was just a bit bigger. Everything fits in there when you buy it, but my kids had a hard time getting everything back in on their own between uses. We ended up storing the parts in a Ziploc bag. This is one of those things where you want to make sure your kids understand that they need to take care of all the pieces. If you lose some, then that pretty much means you can't use the set anymore unless you either find the piece or have spare LEGO parts (some of the parts aren't pieces you find in most traditional LEGO sets).I would recommend this as a gift to a LEGO lover. It's got more "usability" than traditional LEGO sets where some kids build it once and then just leave it on the shelf. It's good for exploring STEM concepts too!

The thing I like most about this book is the starter set of Lego Technic bricks it comes with. Even with the small collection included, the imagination soars with what can be created. The inclusion of gears and rubber bands is genius, allowing for many moving creations.The book itself is well written and illustrated, but most of the designs don't live up to the "high performance" promise on the front cover. The blender design is a nice introduction to gearing. The crank-driven car, top spinner, and time-escapement device are fun to build and operate. The other projects are rather ho-hum, in my opinion, although the 6-10 year old crowd would probably find more to like.I still give 4 stars, because the set of blocks included and the imagination spring board the book provides make this product more than worth its price. A great buy.

This product is great! My children loved it so I have purchased multiple for gifts. Highly recommend!

I enjoy building Lego with my kids and, frankly, we probably have all of the included parts already (if we were willing to take a few things apart). I was wary of the product because we aren't klutzes when it comes to things mechanical. But this has proved a great rainy-day toy that we can do together. We build a contraption, play with it for a week or two, and then take it apart and build the next one. Not all of the plans are terribly inspired, but it works for us. I should say that we are dealing with little kids (down to 4 years old) and that I'm not sure how well this set would work for older kids. A ten or twelve year old would probably tear through the designs in an hour and then want more parts to build something else. What I like best about the set is that it naturally encourages building and rebuilding different designs rather than one particular thing. So, it's a great toy if this sounds like something you'd enjoy sharing with your kids. Also, you should be able to find this toy on Amazon at below MSRP.