Teach Tech “Hydrobot Arm Kit”, Hydraulic Kit, STEM Building Toy for Kids 12+

My 9 y/o son who has a robotics fascination needed to understand the principles of hydraulic actuation before we got into pumps, valves and accumulators. This was the perfect starter kit. A word of warning—this is not really a kit for novices. The systems won’t work really well unless you are diligent in following the instructions to bleed each of the cylinders and water lines. It’s a lot of tedious assembly work for a younger kid that should be overseen by someone with at least a little mechanical aptitude. But for the price it is a fantastic teaching tool and precision toy.

With some engineering background, we put it together successfully right away. It took several hours to assemble and I will admit, getting the hydraulics loaded correctly is a bit of a challenge for any 12-year-old without adult supervision. Even then, I could see a lot of folks being overwhelmed by the challenge of not only assembly, piece by piece, with no room for error, to the water-loading hydraulic portion of the assembly. Set aside plenty of uninterrupted time, "roughly" first 40 pages are robot assembly, second 40 pages are hydraulics/pumps/tubing. If you're looking to get your kids interested in robotics, STEM/STEAM, or engineering/manufacturing this is a relatively inexpensive introduction to test the staying power of this low-level technology and their interest. It will also test your patience. Although we've played with it enough now that it's already showing signs of wear and the parts/levers are getting loose. Overall, great introductory toy to robotics!

Very well made small precision parts. The instructions are very clear and well done. Don't plan on finishing this in one sitting.

The only downside is the black and white instructions, other than that it is clear how much attention to detail and meaningful iteration went into this.

We got this as a Christmas gift for my engineering-minded kid. He LOVED putting it together and how intricate it was. Actually cutting the tubes and putting water in it to make it work was pretty cool. Highly recommend!

This thing is pretty sweet. Saw it on sale so couldn't pass it up. My son and I put it together and he has played with it for hours.

Sooooo excited

Mostly good. One plastic part broke easily making the device inoperable. I'm not sure what to do about this. Are parts available? Should I request a replacement?