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Science Museum Dinorobot Robot Making Kit
by broxi3781
Among other goodies Dooyoo sent out as part of their 12 Days of Christmas contest was this "Dinorobot - Make Your Own Monster " kit from Science Museum toys. The recommended age level for this toy is ages 8+, but my oldest is only 5, so obviously a great deal of parental help was required. I roped my husband into helping our ... son build this, while I kept the younger son busy playing one of his computer games. He was very keen to help, but we all know a 2 year old's help with something like this only makes it more difficult. He did manage to nip and lose a wheel for us though, which added even more to the total assembly time.
This toy promises it is easy to assemble, but my husband would certainly disagree. The total assembly time was just over 90 minutes not including time spent looking for the lost wheel, although a good bit of this could have been cut off by reading the directions first. My husband put a wheel on too soon and had a terrible time removing it so reading directions before assembly is highly recommended. Even without that, I would expect an hour to assemble this. While there were no actual swear words during the assembly due to close proximity of our son, there was an awful lot of muttering under his breath from my dear husband. In fact the look of frustration as this dragged on and on might well make this toy worth the purchase price if I had bought it ;).
This is meant to be educational and includes a page briefly explaining how an electric coil is used to create magnetic charge in electrically powered engines, but it does not say how this actually makes an engine go, and although my son is usually quite sharp at how engines work, and could explain to you the purpose of spark plugs, pistons etc from age 4, I do think this explanation was beyond his comprehensions. Other than that, you have the educational value of seeing how one gear turns another, and these work rubber band pulley and so on, but I am afraid I find the educational value very limited.
Once this was assembled, we found that ordinary AA batteries are not really adequate to power this and had to steal the brand new Duracell from my digital camera. Even at that, and one days use, I think this is starting to wind down, so I expect this to be an expensive toy to maintain battery wise. another drawback is that the body of this is made from paper card. Although we binned the tiny double sided tapes which came with this and used plenty of cello tape to make it a bit more sturdy, I really can not see this toy lasting terribly long. Of course it is intended for older children, who likely would not play with it so much once assembled. I could older boys having fun for a bit sending two of these snapping at each other to see which one falls down first, but I can not see it lasting for long, and that only if you have two models.
Once this is complete it lurches across the floor with its great mouth snapping open and closed. It will only work on a smooth hard surface. It will not move at all on the rug, but will move across the wood floor rather slowly lurching forward a few inches, pausing and lurching forward again. My five year old spent about 10 minutes playing with this and lost interest, but my two year old absolutely loves it. My husband set over a cd box on the computer desk with it's wheels spinning in the air and after a bit it managed to wobble free and fell with a great snap towards my two year old, who has since thought this was brilliant. He loves it's big snapping mouth, but then again he uses a horrible looking Godzilla puppet as a cuddly toy, and loves crocodiles and the Big Bad Wolf. He never seems to tire of watching this lurch forward, calling out "snap snap" as it rolls along.
So down to my rating - I do feel a bit awful giving this a lower rating, when it was free, but must assume anyone reading this would be buying this at it's normal price of £6.58 at Amazon, or higher elsewhere. I have seen this for as high as £9.99. My own opinion of the toy is that the battery usage is too high, and the educational value limited. Add to that the fact it is very unlikely to last long and I think 3 stars is very generous. My oldest son thinks it is OK, but nothing special and I think would go with about 3 stars as well. He had some fun making it, and playing for a bit and was happy enough to give it to his little brother afterwards, but he is quite generous with his toys. My husband hated it - but I had fun watching him so I'll even that out. Finally the two year old adores this, but I can not see anyone buying one for a child his age, as it is not likely to last him long. I can really see this resulting in tears when this inevitably falls apart and poor "Snap Snap" is dead. I do think an older child would have more fun making this on there own, making a nice way to pass a rainy day in, and might play with it for awhile, but I do think play value would limited once it is built. So my overall rating stays at 3 stars.
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Magnext Dynamix Advanced Gears
by DavyMichelle
The Magnext Dynamix Advanced Gears was an absolute bargain-buy for the grandson's recent birthday. I knew as soon as I spotted this on ebay that he would love this. I was actually looking up the price of another Magnext toy that he had actually asked for (the Icoaster) when I stumbled across this being sold for a bargain 99p plus £3 ... postage - brand new in box. I felt a bit bad when it arrived with £6.50 postage stamped on it actually!
If you want to buy a set yourself, for some reason this only costs around £5 - £10 wherever you get it from, with Amazon having it available from several different Marketplace sellers. For a set of this size, including this kind of electronic function, I'm really quite surprised. I can only summise that this is a niche product which only appeals to certain kinds of children. It definitely appeals to the grandson.
You put a series of cogs onto the bumpy base board included in the set, then you just add batteries into the giant circle and stick that on, and stick the lever on too. Then just flip the lever to get all the cogs on the board turning around - simple stuff. Of course this in itself is a bit limited, but the idea is that you use your existing Magnext (and the few additional pieces included in the box) to build up your own ideas, inventions and systems. Then get them spinning around.
I can see now I write this that it's a basic idea with very little variation. However, it's an idea that has really appealed to my grandson and provided him with a good half an hour's play each time he's got this out. It works very easily too, and we've not had any difficulty getting the power to work. It's as easy as slapping the bits down and flicking the switch on.
Definitely recommended for budding engineers in the 5-8yrs age group. Any older and they'll find this a bit boring I think. Any younger and they won't be able to work out how to get the cogs to work with one another very easily. The price is nice and low, but do be aware that you'll need some other Magnext pieces to use with this set to get real play value out of it. If your child doesn't already have any, you're looking at buying something like one of the little starter kits to go with it.
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ICoaster Magnetic Rollercoaster
by DavyMichelle
The Magnext Icoaster is a really cool idea that I think will appeal to a lot of kids aged between about 6 and 12 years of age. It's one of those technical, gadgety toys that has taken a popular old fashioned toy and managed to make it appealing to a wider than usual age range.
The idea is that this is an electronic ... rollercoaster for marbles. So it's essentially a marble run, but more than that, it really does work like a rollercoaster! It takes the marbles up a steep climb to get going, then sends it crashing down and around the track, along some tightropes (which hold thanks to the magnets) and back round to the start again.
You can turn it on using a power block (which takes 4 x C batteries - buy these in advance or face a rush trip to Tesco like I did!) and you can plug in some extra bits which detect the marbles passing through, and set off some funky sound effects too. There's an extra jack in the power block so that you can plug in your MP3 player even, and add your own music to the rollercoaster ride.
Definitely one big gimmick, but a fun big gimmick that has totally enthralled the grandson since he first spotted it in the shops! It retails for anywhere between £30 and £45, depending on where you buy it from. We got ours from Toys R Us for £30 as a birthday present. The box is huge and definitely counts as a 'big present'.
There are some downsides to this, of course, as there always are with gadgety toys like this - especially those made by Megabloks (who are well known for their cheaply made toys unfortunately!). Putting this toy together is an absolute pain. The instructions aren't as clear as they could be, and I'm usually really good with picture instructions for things like this.
The idea is that this toy can be built up and arranged and rearranged by children, but I think it's a bit on the tricky side for kids younger than 8 or 9 to manage easily. Youngsters will find this frustrating to put together, the grandson certainly did. You need to be able to keep all the pillars balanced each time you want to add on the next bit of track, and you need to push in the new pieces into rather stiff joints, which often means you sent the whole thing hurtling over from having to push so hard!
I do recommend this because it's such a fun and novel idea that has provided the grandson with hours of fun. I wouldn't give it to very young kids though as it's too frustrating, it's definitely for older ones aged six years or more. It's definitely one that needs some adult assistance to assemble as well. Once it's up and running, it does what it's supposed to do - that's the most important thing I guess.
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