Today we had the pleasure of being asked to review Build your own Marble run by Buildyourownkits.com priced at £22.99.
First off here’s a little about the product, from the company itself.
Description
This innovative cardboard marble run is assembled using slot together techniques – no glue, no mess, no fuss. Everything you need is provided in the kit – follow the detailed instructions: press out the pre-cut parts, build and watch them go!
Wind the handle to raise the 10 swirly glass marbles up the elevator; then watch as they speed down one of the three different neon coloured tracks. Enjoy endless fun as the marbles twist, turn, drop down the steps, and then whizz round the vortex cone before racing to the finish!
Which marble will win??
Made using sustainable cardboards, we have tried our best to create a product that is not only fun and engaging to use, but also environmentally responsible.
Our Thoughts
The packaging was bright and engaging our son said, “This looks ace!” and it is something I would definitely look at in the shop and consider buying, after all the promise on the box is “No glue, No mess and No Fuss!” which is a parents dream! (or it’s our dream, at least) not to mention the sustainability factor!
On opening the box I must say we were all a little bit overwhelmed, there are so many different pieces! Not to be ones who back down over a challenge we set to work. The instructions are bright and the added dimension of colour coordination and symbols make it easy to know where things slot together.
The build time is said to be 4 hours and its aimed at children 8+, with adult help. Our boy is 8 and has quite a short attention span, so after the first hour became distracted and less interested in the process of building. Some of it is quite fiddly and we were left to fathom things out for ourselves. I’d be prepared to build over several days to keep younger children invested in the process (or potentially be a parent left to your own devices to get the finished article up and running!)
After five and a half hours we were finished! The marble run itself is very clever. Different switches send the marbles down different paths and off on different trajectories. It did take us a few attempts to fine tune it and get it all working perfectly, but again the instructions were invaluable with a full segment on trouble shooting should anything not be working as planned.
So what did our son think? In his own words “it’s very cool, but a little scary, it might break” and he wasn’t far wrong.
After 5 minutes of playing with it, one of the tracks shifted slightly from where it should have been and the marbles started to drop out, and despite his best efforts he couldn’t fix it alone, so we came in and put it right. Another 5 minutes and another part had come loose. So back we went to fix it again. After the third time this happened his interest in it was lost, although it did inspire him to pull out his own marble run set and create his own track from scratch. This would be great toy for a child that is calm, and studious and maybe a little older. Our son however is energetic, loves to build, but also loves to play sometimes a little to roughly which means that ultimately Sellotape and staples may be needed to keep it in one piece.
In order to give the marble run the benefit of the doubt we’ve left this part of the review until one week after the build was finished. It’s been up in his room for seven days now and is still relatively unscathed. The marbles still go round the track, but we did relent and strengthen some of the joints with sticky tape, so it’s been more resilient than we anticipated, it’s even been involved in some Lego shenanigans and I believe that some of the mini figures have been trapped on it (and survived) when it was co-opted into becoming a trap for the baddies to trap the goodies in!
So what were our final thoughts? No glue? Well, technically – although a little bit of sticky tape did help the constant call for us to keep fixing it.
No mess? You do need space and there are a lot of tiny pieces of punchboard and card that get popped out. As long as you tidy as you go (and don’t have a cat that enjoys bopping them all over the place) then they’ve got that sorted.
No Fuss? Define fuss! There were a few frustrating moments when we misread the instructions at the start and had to dismantle the whole thing and start again, and our boy who was at the youngest suggested age did lose interest but overall, it’s a no fuss deal.
There are other kits in the range that our son has expressed an interest in getting, so it’s piqued his interest. For us personally we’d go for a simpler one next time to keep him engaged for the whole process, but it kept us busy for an afternoon in lockdown, has been played with since and the sense of satisfaction as your first marble completes its run around the finished track is one that is definitely worth working for.
If you want to know more, about Build Your Own products, head on over to their website.
Rules of Dadding would like to thank Parenting without Tears for allowing us to review this product. You can see more reviews from us either on our blog or why not hop on over and look at Parenting without Tears
Also check out Parenting without Tears for more of our fabulous reviews like this one!
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