Klutz LEGO Crazy Action Contraptions Craft Kit

My 9 year old loves this book. It gets his imagination going and has enabled him to see his Lego in a different way and to learn hands on about physics and engineering. He just built the car that is pictured on the front of the book by following the instructions, no help from any adult required. The book is clear, easy to follow and the contraptions are fun to build. Another favorite contraption from this book is the "egg beater" that he uses to mix chocolate syrup into white milk to make his own chocolate milk mixture. No regrets about buying this book. Hope to find more like it!

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!

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).

Fun Lego book. I purchased this for my kids. I loved the technic sets as a kid and this project book has many fun little contraptions. With some practice my 6 year old was able to make them on his own. A couple of the projects are not nearly as fun as the others. There is a tic tac toe type game and a wheel to slide down a line. This is the only reason for 4 instead of 5 stars. The kids loved the grabber arm and the mixer. It comes with all the parts needed to make the contraptions, one at a time. Don't worry the kids love to take them apart and make the next one. Get it for the kids or yourself!

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.

This lit my seven year old son's imagination on fire. He loved it, played with it the most out of all of his Christmas toys, and has since started using the pieces to come up with his own creations. It's amazing what following the book has taught him because he's engineering robots out of the pieces. This was worth every penny and has been the gift that keeps on giving.

This is a good product for smaller kids. Even though it's meant for kids 7+, my 4 yr old is enjoying it though he can't really make it by himself. I would say a 4 yr old can do 30 to 40% and need an adult's supervision. 5 yr old may be able to do 50 to 60% and 6 yr old 80% or more depending on their motor skills to deal with smaller pieces. The best thing is it increases interest and curiosity and can pave way for developing further interest in LEGO Technic. The main reason I bought this is for the step by step guide for all the projects along with pieces and also the projects are simple (yes, don't expect larger projects for kids of age 4 to 8).

This did not interest my son but we still have it maybe we can try again

The boys had good fun with the toy for couple of days.

My 9yr old son owns a few Lego sets & he is used to mashing them up to come up with his own robots, planes & cars. For this Christmas, i wanted to give him something that will build on his interest & this worked perfectly. We gifted this + the power functions motor + battery boy unit (from the local Lego store). As soon as he opened it he was able to build motorized cars and we plan to build more gadgets with it. For the number of bricks in it, it may seems pricey... but the gears in it are rare which you can find only in the most expensive Lego Technic sets. Moreover, this set is cheaper in Amazon than it is elsewhere. With this set your kid will get his hands on experience with basic machines like the pulley, gears, fulcrum, etc. If you want to gift your kid something that is both fun & educational, you can't go wrong with it.

This book has all you need and full instructions to make 16 exciting Lego models with the 100 pieces provided. We acquired this book at Christmas, it has taken me a while to write about it as you can only build one model at a time, and each time we have built one, my children have been pretty reluctant to dismantle our creation. This is Lego, but with a twist. As the models come with gears and rubber bands, you can actually make things that work, and do something more interesting than the norm. The first thing we built was the car that features on the front of the book. The book promised that it would travel over 50 feet "on a good run", and once built we were delighted to find out that once we wound up our creation it did indeed work as billed and lived up to its "Supercharged Speedster" name, and travelled at quite an impressive speed. There was something very satisfying about using all the gears and bands to make a working toy. We have found that the instructions are quite easy to follow - we have tended to build these models together, but I am guessing that an 8 or 9 year old would manage to build the models by themselves. The drawings are not quite of the same quality as actual Lego instructions, in some cases it is a little tricky to work out which particular axle or connector you need, however a handy contents page at the start of the book means you can check that you are using a piece of the right length. There is also a trouble shooting page at the end of the book with handy tips for each model, you might, for example, have to adjust a band on a gear slightly or make sure all the bricks are pushed firmly together. So far everything we have made has worked brilliantly well - the kids particularly enjoyed playing with the "Squeezeclaw Grabber" which is a very extendable small object picker- upper, but all the toys really are designed to appeal. The Annoy-O-Matic, a kind of old fashioned football rattle fully lived up to its name, though the "Beaker Blender" - a machine to stir drinks, did result in some rather sticky lego! Still as this is lego, all the pieces are sturdy and washable and you get the feeling when building these models that this is what lego was designed to do; this book is just great, it is lego but not as we know it, perhaps Lego as it ought to be! The books itself is ring bound, with thick, wipeable pages and is very robust indeed, and the lego is all easily stored in the box on its front cover. The text and pictures are bright and engaging - you do really feel that it has been designed with children in mind. I think that the construction of these models is challenging, but in a good way - some of these builds are not always straightforward, but the steps are well broken down and, ultimately, the end results are so impressive that it is worth it. I'm pretty sure that this book is aimed at boys as things like the "Battle Top Spinner" - which launches spinning lego do seem boy territory, but girls do feature in the photos of kids that accompany this book and any child or adult who has an interest in how things work would enjoy making these models in my opinion. My daughter has really enjoyed playing with this with me. I do have one slight criticism, and that is that being an American book instructions such as getting a "bunch of gears" and "we ain't kiddin" can grate a little, it would have been nice if this were adapted for the UK market, but this minor point doesn't detract from the enjoyment to be had from this book. I think that this would make a fantastic and original present, and that it is actually really good value for all the fun that is to be had with it. As I have indicated all the models are fun and they all seem to work well. I thoroughly recommend this book, it certainly lives up to its title and is a must-have for any lego fan, young or old! (may appear elsewhere in my name)

Voici des ouvrages comme il en manque pour approcher les Legos techniques. Des mécanismes simples mais rusés qui permettent aux enfants (et parents) de comprendre la mise en mouvement de la célèbre marque à la brique. Quelques briques (toutes fournies rappelons-le), un livret de montage hyper complet et hop! : un batteur manuel, un lance-toupie, une crécelle, un véhicule propulsé par élastique et j'en passe... Mon fils de 9 ans à passer des heures dessus, construisant, re-démontant et finalement expérimentant. De surcroît, le livre fait office de boite permettant le transport de toutes les pièces nécessaires. Super pratique (notamment dans certaines salles d'attente!!!!) Que du bon qui va nous pousser à trouver d'autres articles de ce type

Le encanto a mi hijo. Ya hizo todas las figuras en el libro y ahora esta usando su creatividad para nuevos juegos con sus legos.